Part 27 (1/2)

”She certainly answers the helm all right,” I reported. ”We can manage unless there is a string of rocks right across the stream.”

”It will be easier as we go along,” said Jim. ”Not the river, of course, that will get worse, but we will understand it better, all its little curly-cues and cute little ways, like slambanging you into a cliff when you think that she is going to curve the other way.”

In the early afternoon we ran into a broader canyon with great walls set back from the river and thickly dotted with pines.

The walls were magnificent, over two thousand feet in height, reaching in curves ahead of us, and curving down to the stream in bold promontories.

”By Jove, but this is a fascinating business,” called Jim, as we approached a great curve in the canyon. ”You never knew what is ahead the next minute.”

”Yes,” I replied, ”it is, but there is an uncertainty about it that I don't like. How do we know but there may be a waterfall just around the corner there?”

”It may be rapids, but no waterfall,” replied Jim. ”You needn't expect any Niagara to loom up, because the parties who have been down here before would have discovered it and that would have been all that they would have discovered.”

”I bet that this stream rises sometimes,” interposed Tom. ”Just look at that drift caught up there on that cliff, that must be all of thirty feet.”

”It isn't very low water now,” said Jim, ”which is lucky for us, for we would be knocked out pretty quick if we ran into a whole nest of rocks or at least we would get stalled.”

”I reckon that only a light skiff could go down here in low water,” said Tom.

”Yes,” I replied, ”but it would be stove in pretty quick if it should strike an outcrop of rock.”

”I guess 'The Captain' is the boat for this business,” commented Jim.

”We will knock through with her somehow.”

”More rapids,” I cried, as we rounded the curve in the canyon.

Tom and I sprang to our oars, and in five minutes we were fighting our way through a bunch of foaming rocks, then down a bunchy descending current.

After a run of fifteen miles we came to a place where the river broadened into quietness, and ahead of us we saw a place where the waters rippled into a cove.

”There's the place to land,” cried Jim.

CHAPTER XXI

A RIVER AMBUSH

We pulled diagonally across the river, and brought ”The Captain” quietly alongside a gravelly sh.o.r.e that came down quite steep to the water.

”Let go your bow anchor there,” commanded the commodore.

Splash went the heavy rock overboard with rope attached, and Jim let down the other anchor from the stern.

It seemed to me fine to be on land again. It was a relief to be out of the savage grip of the river, even for a little while.

”How far have we come to-day, Jim?” I asked.

”Between eighty and ninety miles, I reckon,” he replied. ”I feel as if I had rowed it myself. It gets into your shoulders handling that sweep.”