Adventure and adventurers > Away in the wilderness, or, Life among the red Indians and fur-traders of North America

AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS.
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of Jasper and the Indian when they came to the
first rapid. Heywood knew that he could be of no
use, so, like a wise man, he sat still and looked on.
The rapid was a very strong one, but there were
no falls in it; only a furious gush of water over
the broken bed of the river, where many large rocks
rose up and caught the current, hurling the water
back in white foam. Any one who knew not what
these hunters could do, would have laughed if you
had told him they were about to ascend that rapid
in such an egg-shell of a canoe !
They began by creeping up, in-shore, as far as
they could. Then they dashed boldly out into
the stream, and the current whirled them down
with lightning speed, but suddenly the canoe came
to a halt in the very middle of the stream ! Every
rock in a rapid has a long tail of still water below
it; the canoe had got into one of these tails or
eddies, and there it rested securely. A few yards
higher up there was another rock, nearer to the
opposite bank, and the eddy which tailed off from
it came down a little lower than the rock behind
which the canoe now lay. There was a furious
gush of water between them and this eddy, but
the men knew what the canoe could bear, and
their nerves were strong and steady. Across they
went like a shot. They were swept down to the
extreme point of the eddy, but a few powerful
strokes of the paddle sent them into it, and next