if you had them cut
into square timbers, and lying in one of the London docks, they would be
worth from ten to forty pounds each."

"But it is glorious to see all this," I said eagerly.

"Yes; glorious. In all my travels I have seen nothing more beautiful,"
said Gunson; and he added laughing, "I never went up a river that was so
rugged and so swift."

It was just in such a nook as that which we had admired so much that the
Indians ran the boat ashore about midday, and after making her fast in a
glassy little pool, they signed to us to get out, after which they all
sat down among the ferns, and under the shelter of the spreading boughs
of a pine, and brought out some food. We imitated their example, and
made a hearty meal, washing it down with a tin of water from a little
fountain which gushed from a moss-covered rock.

By this time the Indians were lying down apparently asleep, and it set
me thinking about what our position would be if we followed their
example and they decamped with our boxes and stores. Suppose there was
no way out of this neck, for the sides looked as if it would be
impossible to climb them, and it was evidently a rare thing for any boat
to go up or down.

However, these were only fancies, for after about an hour's rest the
Indians suddenly jumped up and pointed to the boat. We got in, and the
struggle with the river began again, to be kept up till the sun had
descended behind the mountains, and it was beginning to look gloomy
where the river ran. Places that would have been glorious to the eye in
the bright sunshine now seemed weird and terrible, impressing even our
hard, stern friend, so that he suddenly said--

"We had better land at the first suitable place, and make camp for the
night. We can easily get a good fire."

I was glad to hear him say this, for with the advancing evening the
waters looked cold, and the echoing roar of torrent and fall had an
awful sound that began to affect my spirits, and Esau's as well, for he
suddenly said to me--

"I say, this part ain't half so beautiful as some of the others."

Gunson set himself the task of explaining to the Indians that we wanted
to land, a want that they grasped directly; the leader nodding and
pointing forward beyond a sudden bend of the river, where it made a
sweep to our right round a towering buttress of rock, which projected so
far that it seemed to block up the channel, and turn the place into a
lake. Then bending once