nor, and am willing to try if you give the order, but I have
been told by Indians that when the river is, as now, in flood, the danger
is by no means great. Of course, we shall keep out of the full strength of
the current."

Accordingly they started the next morning, and an hour after setting out
were in the sweep of the rapids. The passage was an intensely exciting
one. The Indians stood, paddle in hand, one at each corner of the front of
the raft; their poles lay ready to snatch up in case any rock was
approached, but the paddles were needed to keep the raft from being
dragged out into the full force of the current. Here the water rose in
steep ridges, and had the raft got among these it would have been torn to
pieces almost instantly. At the same time it was desirable not to go too
near the shore, as the risk from submerged rocks would be greater there.
But Stephen saw that unless rocks came absolutely above the surface they
would be swept over them, as the raft drew but two or three inches of
water. Except in the middle, the stream rushed along with a surface broken
only by tiny eddies. It was only by seeing how they flew past the banks
that any idea could be formed of the speed at which they were travelling.

In eight hours it was over. Several times the paddlers had to exert
themselves to the utmost to avoid spots where great swells of water showed
that there were rocks below the surface, but on no occasion did the
Indians have to use their poles. The bed of the river widened sharply at
the foot of the rapids, and just as Stephen congratulated himself that the
passage had been safely made, he saw by an increase in the labour of the
Indians that something was wrong. Standing up in the canoe he perceived
that they had been shot out of the current into the back-water formed by
the sudden widening of the stream, and that in this back-water was a very
strong eddy sweeping round and round in a circle. This was about a hundred
yards in diameter, with a depression in the centre, and round this the
raft was carried at a rate that defied the efforts of the two paddlers to
check.

At one moment they were within twenty yards of a flat forest-covered
shore, and the next were near the edge of the torrent pouring down the
rapids. In vain the paddlers tried to edge the raft out little by little
from the whirlpool. Not only was the current too strong for them, but its
surface was dotted with floating logs and branches of trees th