mong them, darting down with what would have
seemed, to any inexperienced eye, perilous velocity. The river at the
place was about a hundred yards wide, with an unusually rugged channel,
but with a distinctly marked run--deep and tortuous--in the middle. On
both sides of the run, sweeping and curling surges told of rocks close
to the surface, and in many places these showed black edges above water,
which broke the stream into dazzling foam.

"Have a care, Blondin," said our chief, in a warning voice, as the
bowman made a sudden and desperate shove with his pole. A side current
had swept us too far in the direction of a forbidding ledge, to touch on
which might have been fatal. But Henri Coppet, who acted as steersman
as well as carpenter, was equal to the occasion. He bent his lanky form
almost double, took a magnificent sweep with the oar, and seconded
Blondin's shove so ably that we passed the danger like an arrow, with
nothing but a slight graze.

That danger past we were on the brink of another, almost before we had
time to think. At the time I remember being deeply impressed, in a
confused way, with the fact that, whatever might await us below, there
was now no possibility of our returning up stream. We were emphatically
"in for it," and our only hope lay in the judgment, boldness, and
capacity of the two men who guided our frail bark--doubly frail, it
seemed to me, when contrasted with the waters that surged around, and
the solid rocks that appeared to bar our way in all directions. Even
some of our men at the oars, whose only duty was to obey orders
promptly, began to show symptoms of anxiety, if not of fear.

"Smooth water ahead," muttered Lumley, pointing to a small lake into
which the turbulent river ran about a quarter of a mile further down.

"All right soon," I said, but just as I spoke the boat lightly touched a
rock. Blondin saw that there was not sufficient depth in a passage
which he had intended to traverse. With a shout to the steersman he
thrust his pole over the side with all his might. The obedient craft
turned as if on a pivot, and would have gone straight into a safe stream
in another second, if Blondin's pole had not stuck fast either in mud or
between two rocks.

In a moment our bowman was whisked over the side as if he had been a
feather. Letting go the pole he caught the gunwale and held on. The
boat was carried broadside on the rocks, and the gushing water raised
her upper