h, exerting his utmost strength in order to keep the canoe off a
rock over which the water was bursting in volumes of thick foam; "haul
away! haul away! we're just about up."

The shout attracted Bertram's attention; he turned his eyes
involuntarily towards the river. Instantly his brain swam round; he
staggered, and would have fallen over the bank, had not Big Waller, who
was close behind, observed his situation and caught him by the collar.
In doing so he was compelled to let go his hold of the line. The
additional strain thus suddenly cast upon Gibault wrenched the line from
his grasp with a degree of violence that wellnigh hurled him into the
river. Bounce and Hawkswing held on for one moment, but the canoe,
having been eased off a little, caught a sweep of the rapid, and went
out with a dart that the united strength of the whole party could not
have checked. The two men had to let go to save themselves, and in a
shorter time than it takes to relate, the canoe went down the river
towards the fall, dancing like a cork on the heaving spray, while the
old man and the youth stood up in the bow and stern wielding their
paddles, now on one side, now on the other, with ceaseless rapidity in
their efforts to avoid being dashed to pieces on the rocks.

The sight of this catastrophe, superadded to his already agonised
feelings, caused the unhappy artist to swoon. Gibault, on seeing the
line let go, turned instantly, and sprang like a deer along the track
they had been following; intending to render what assistance he could to
his comrades at the foot of the rapid. The others could not follow,
because of Big Waller and the artist, who obstructed the path. Seeing
this, the powerful Yankee seized Bertram round the waist, and, heaving
him on his shoulder as one would swing a child, followed in Gibault's
footsteps as fast as he could run.

The distance to the spot whence they had commenced to track the canoe
was not great, but before they reached it the frail craft had been
shattered against a rock, and was now hurrying, along with the scattered
cargo and the two men, towards the fall, to pass over which involved
certain destruction.

There is nothing more uncertain, however, than the action of the
whirling eddies of a great rapid. True, the general flow of its body of
water is almost always the same, but its superficial billows are more
variable--now tossing a drifting log to the right, anon to the left, and
casting i