r swarthy
crews straining at the great sweeps. Here was action--life! Primitive
man battling against the unbending forces of an iron wilderness. The
red blood leaped through the girl's veins as she realized that this
life was to be her life--this wilderness to be her wilderness. Hers to
bring under the book, and its primitive children, hers--to govern by a
rule of thumb!

Suddenly she noticed that the following scows were much nearer shore
than her own, and also, that they were being rapidly out-distanced.
She glanced quickly toward shore. The scow was opposite the strip of
beach toward which the others were slowly but surely drawing. The scow
seemed motionless, as upon the surface of a mill-pond, but the beach,
and the high bank beyond, raced past to disappear in the deepening
gloom. The figures in the following scows--the scows
themselves--blurred into the shore-line. The beach was gone. Rocks
appeared, jagged, and high--close upon either hand.

In a sudden panic, Chloe glanced wildly toward Vermilion, who crouched
in the bow, pole in hand, and with set face, stared into the gloom
ahead. Swiftly her glance travelled over the crew--their faces, also,
were set, and they stood at the sweeps, motionless, but with their eyes
fixed upon the pole of the pilot. Beyond Vermilion, in the forefront,
appeared wave after wave of wildly tossing water. For just an instant
the scow hesitated, trembled through its length, and with the leaping
waves battering against its bottom and sides, plunged straight into the
maw of the Chute!

CHAPTER II

VERMILION SHOWS HIS HAND

Down, down through the Chute raced the heavily loaded scow, seeming
fairly to leap from wave to wave in a series of tremendous shocks, as
the flat bottom rose high in the fore and crashed onto the crest of the
next wave, sending a spume of stinging spray high into the air.
White-water curled over the gunwale and sloshed about in the bottom.
The air was chill, and wet--like the dead air of a rock-cavern.

Chloe Elliston knew one moment of swift fear. And then, the mighty
roar of the waters; the mad plunging of the scow between the towering
walls of rock; the set, tense face of Vermilion as he stared into the
gloom; the laboured breathing of the scowmen as they strained at the
sweeps, veering the scow to the right, or to the left, as the rod of
the pilot indicated; the splendid battle of it; the wild exhilaration
of fighting death on death's own