hallow, and runs swiftly over a bed of large gravel and boulders
thickly grown with aquatic grass and weeds. We had gone but a little
way when a rattling ahead told of near proximity to swift and rough
water, down which we danced at a speed perilous to the boats, but not
to our personal safety. The river was unusually low, so that the many
bouldery rapids which otherwise would have been welcome were now only
the vexatious hints of what might have been. The shallow foam dashed
down each rocky ledge without channel or choice, and whichever way we
went we soon wished we had gone another. The rocks were too many for
evasion, and the swift current caught our keels upon their half-sunken
heads, which held us fast in imminent peril of a swamp or a capsize,
our only safety lying in open eyes, quick and skilful use of the paddle
or a sudden leap overboard at a critical instant. Added to these
difficulties, a gusty head wind and lively showers obscured the
boulders and the few open channels. So we went on all the forenoon,
hampered by our ponchos, poling, drifting, paddling and peering our
way, blinded by wind and rain, till we came to the last of these
labyrinths, liveliest and most treacherous of all. We were soaked, and
only dreaded an upset for our provisions and equipments. The rapid was
long, rough, swift, crooked. The Kleiner Fritz led the way into the
swirl, and was caught, a hundred feet down, hard and fast by her
bow-keel, swung around against another boulder at her stern, and was
pinned fast in no sort of danger, the water boiling under and around
her, while her captain sat at his leisure as under the inevitable, with
a don't-care-a-dash-ative procrastination of the not-to-be-avoided jump
overboard and wade for deeper water. The Betsy D., following closely,
passed the Fritz with a rush which narrowly escaped the impalement of
the one by the other's sharp nose, struck, hung for a moment, while the
water dashed over her decks and around her manhole, then washed loose
and went onward safely to still water. The Fritz, solid as the
Pyramids, beckoned the Hattie to come on without awaiting the
questionable time of the latter's release; so the namesake of the
hazel-eyed and brown-haired Indiana girl came into the boil and bubble,
sailed gayly by the troubles of the others, was gliding on toward quiet
seas under her skipper's gleeful whoops, when, bang! went her bow upon
a rock, from which a moment's work freed her: tz-z-z-z-z-z