the touch of her slender, clinging
form made my heart exult. Once again I shouted in her ear.

"It's all right, don't be frightened. We'll pull through, all right."

Once more we had whirled off into the main current; once more we were in
that roaring torrent, with its fearsome dips and rises, its columned
walls corroded with age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight.
The water smashed and battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed
us in heavy sprays; yet with closed eyes and thudding hearts we waited.
Then suddenly the light grew strong again. The primaeval walls were gone.
We were sweeping along smoothly, and on either side of us the valley
sloped in green plateaus up to the smiling sky.

I unlocked my arms and peered down to where her face lay half hidden on
my breast.

"Thank God, I was able to reach you!"

"Yes, thank God!" she answered faintly. "Oh, I thought it was all over.
I nearly died with fear. It was terrible. Thank God for you!"

But she had scarce spoken when I realised, with a vast shock, that the
danger was far from over. We were hurrying along helplessly in that
fierce current, and already I heard the roar of the Squaw Rapids. Ahead,
I could see them dancing, boiling, foaming, blood-red in the sunset
glow.

"Be brave, Berna," I had to shout again; "we'll be all right. Trust me,
dear!"

She, too, was staring ahead with dilated eyes of fear. Yet at my words
she became wonderfully calm, and in her face there was a great, glad
look that made my heart rejoice. She nestled to my side. Once more she
waited.

We took the rapids broadside on, but the scow was light and very strong.
Like a cork in a mill-stream we tossed and spun around. The vicious,
mauling wolf-pack of the river heaved us into the air, and worried us
as we fell. Drenched, deafened, stunned with fierce, nerve-shattering
blows, every moment we thought to go under. We were in a caldron of
fire. The roar of doom was in our ears. Giant hands with claws of foam
were clutching, buffeting us. Shrieks of fury assailed us, as demon
tossed us to demon. Was there no end to it? Thud, crash, roar, sickening
us to our hearts; lurching, leaping, beaten, battered ... then all at
once came a calm; we must be past; we opened our eyes.

We were again sweeping round a bend in the river in the shadow of a high
bluff. If we could only make the bank--but, no! The current hurled us
along once more. I saw it sweep under a rocky face of the