t as she
had set the boat free his hands were on the gunwale of the boat, but
she raised the oar and brought it down smartly across his knuckles. With
a fresh curse he let go, and a moment later the boat was drifting
further and further from him.

It is a dangerous passage, even for a skilled oarsman, through the Gorge
of the Grey River. In times of flood no man who laid claims to sanity
would attempt the feat; but, even when the river is low and flows
quietly if swiftly, there are rocks and snags that obstruct the passage.
To strike one of these would mean a total wreck.

On either side of the river the masses of grey rock ascend steep and
slippery from the surface of the water. The stream is deep to the very
edges of the cliff, offering but little foothold to one who would climb
from the water to firm land. Here and there the caves break the even
surface of the rocks, and in yet other places great masses jut out in
fantastic shapes above the water. It is always dark and cool in the
Gorge, for the sun never penetrates there excepting in stray beams; a
pleasant place of a hot summer's day, with an expert oarsman and
coxswain to make a safe passage, but full of peril to a young girl alone
in a skiff.

Kathleen O'Connor was, however, so glad to be freed from Gerard, not so
much because she feared physical violence as on account of the uncanny
influence he had over her, that she faced the passage of the Gorge
almost with equanimity. She recognised the danger, for more than one
narrow escape from drowning was chronicled in connection with the
place, and she crouched in the bow of the boat with an oar in her hand,
watching anxiously for rock and snags. Now and then she used the blade
of her oar as a paddle to prevent the boat from turning broadside to the
current. In this manner she was carried safely through the Gorge.

Kathleen O'Connor's passage down the Grey is recorded as the first
occasion on which a woman accomplished the feat alone. Others have done
it since then from bravado and a desire for notoriety. Kathleen was
compelled to be the pioneer among women by fear. The following day she
had a paragraph to herself in both papers, and Grey Town was led to
believe that she had made the passage merely from a love of adventure.
This story was never contradicted, but, like many other tales of
adventure, it is untrue.

At last she found herself safe in the wider expanse of water below the
Gorge, an object of interest a