sympathies were enlisted. He had made several efforts to talk to the
woman, only to be received with a stupid shake of the head. He thought
she could not speak English. Natalie, more keenly intuitive, took an
active dislike to her. "I'm sure she listens to us," she had said.

Meanwhile, preparations were undertaken to hoist the _Aurora Borealis_
by main strength up the rapids. The "skiff," as they whimsically
termed the steamboat's great, clumsy tender--its official name of
"_sturgeon-head_" was more descriptive--was brought alongside; and a
half-mile of hawser, more or less, patiently coiled in the bottom. The
end of this rope was made fast on board the steamer, and the skiff,
pushing off, was poled and tracked up the rapids with heart-breaking
labour, paying out the hawser over her stern as she went. The other end
of the rope was made fast to a great tree on the shore above, and, the
skiff returning, the inboard end was turned about the capstan. Steam
was then turned on, and with a great to-do of puffing and clanking, the
_Aurora_ started to haul herself up hand over hand, as one might say.

Alas! she had no sooner raised her head than the hawser parted in the
middle with a report like a small cannon, and she settled dejectedly
back on the shoal.

Captain Jack refreshed himself with a pull at the Spring Tonic bottle;
and started all over. A newer piece of hawser was produced, and the
skiff despatched once more on its laborious errand. The loose end was
finally picked up and knotted, and the capstan started again. But no
better success followed, as soon as the full strain came upon it, the
rope burst asunder in a new place. After this they went around the other
side of the island and tried there. Each attempt consumed an hour or
more, but time is nothing in the North.

At five o'clock, after the failure of the fourth attempt, Captain Jack
threw up his hands, and turned the _Aurora's_ nose down-stream. The
little boat, which had sulked and hung back in the rapids all day,
picked up her heels, and hustled down with the current, like a wilful
child that obtains its own way at last.

Garth, in dismay, hastened to Captain Jack.

"Where are we going?" he demanded.

Captain Jack cocked an eye, and said with his air of gloomy fatalism:
"The Landing's the only place for me."

Garth became hot under the collar, as he always did in dealing with the
pessimistic skipper. "But we're only fifteen miles from the Warehouse!"