Part 23 (1/2)
”Joe McLimanee he come this far from Revelstruck,” said Leo ”Take hih water”
”Then there must be bad rapids below here,” said John
”Yes,” said his uncle, ”and, as I went up the Canoe myself from here, I've never seen that part of this river, but they say that at the tio, when the et out of this country, they took to rafts The story is that a hundred and sixty-five men of that stampede were drowned in one year on the Death Rapids”
Leo picked up a stick and began toBend of the Columbia and some of its side-streaht, till you coht round bend Surprise Rapids, hih even on line Portage three mile there, maybe-so
”Here was old h for to scare old man Brinkman, so they name it on him, 'Brinkman's Terror'
”Here is what Walt Steffen calls 'Double Eddy'--bad place soh water Bime-by we come on Lake Timbasket, up there,of the outline of the lake, then followed his scratch in the sand on around
”Now begin Twenty-six Mile Rapid, all bad--Gordon Rapids here, Big Eddy here, Rock Canon here Noe come on Boat Encampment This way Revelstruck Death Rapids here; Priest Rapids down here; and then Revelstruck Canon; him bad, very bad, plenty man drown there, too
That five et out and walk there
”Now here”--and he pointed on his sand ht around corner there is one of h, Uncle dick Tell us about it”
”Yes, I cah for me,” said Uncle dick ”That's the Rock Canon and the Grand Eddy Leo has shown it all pretty plainly here I don't want to ot to Lake Ti to be--the old trapper who acted as our guide had never been through when the water was high But e got at the head of the Twenty-six Mile Rapids, below Lake Tis, and we had to go through, for we couldn't get back
”Of course, we could line sometimes, and many of the chutes we did not attempt The first day below Timbasket we made about ten miles, to a camp somewhere below the cu--it sounded like breaking glass--all night long, right near the place where we slept, and it kept ravel down at the bottos--the Indians say there are spirits in the river, and it sounded like it
”There was one Swede that the trapper told us of, who started through the cuot ashore and walked back to the settleh left to buy one sack of flour, then he started down the river again From that day to this he has never been heard of, and no one knohen or where he was drowned
”We passed one big boulder where the trapper said the name of another Sas cut on the rock by his friends recked with hiet out of this country in boats That ives up her dead We saw Leo's broken boat, as I told you; and on the shores of Lake Timbasket we found the wrecks of two other boats, washed down You see, this wild country has no telegraph or newspaper in it When aBend of the Columbia he leaves all sort of communication behind him Many an unknown ain and never missed--this river can hold its own mysteries”
”Well, tell us about this rapid just above here, Uncle dick,” went on Jesse ”Wasn't it pretty bad?”
”The worst I ever saw, at least When we stopped above the head of that canon the trapper told me where the trail was down here to the Encah if the others did Before we got that far I was pretty well impressed with the Columbia, myself When we landed at the head of Upper Death Canon I don't believe any of us were very sure that our boat would go through
No one was talking very much, I'll pro stretch of bad water of the Rock Canon can't be more than four or five ood water in the whole distance, as I remember it Of course, the worst is the Giant Eddy--it lies just over there, beyond the edge of the hill from us In there the water runs three different ways all at once There is no boat on earth can go up this river through the Giant Eddy, and lucky enough is the one which coet in there, you can't get either up again or out on either side--the rock walls coh a narrow, crooked gorge It is like a big letter Z, with all the flood of the Colus; no one kno deep, but not half the width which we see here
”That's the worst water I ever saw e thrown up in the her than the water on either side There is a crest of white water all down the sides of the top of that high ridge The water looks as though it were hard, so that you couldn't drive a nail through it, it's flung through there at such tremendous pressure
”You don't have h, and there is no place where you can see the Giant Eddy except from the Giant Eddy itself All I can reh rib of the water reen water running up-streae of white water in the lass, running on each side froes of the up-streaht, and seeing it once was quite enough for , bad chute I saw a hole open up in the crown of that ridge and could look down into it, it seemed to me, fifteen feet--some freak in the current made it--no one can tell what
It seemed to chase us on down, and all our ot into that whirlpool a foot, no power on earth could have saved us As luck would have it, we kept just outside the rim of the suckhole, and finally escaped it
”Then we careat deep saucer in the river, below a rock ledge of white water--it is like a shallow bicycle track, higher at the edges, a basin dished out in the river itself I don't knoe got into it, and have only a passing e in the middle, and the suckhole that followed us, and then we slipped down into that basin at the last leg of the Z, and through it and across it, and so right around that bend yonder, and here to the Boat Encah