For a little while they hoped, as they worked like madmen. Then the full import of their position dawned upon them--that they were hopelessly drifting toward the brink of the awful cataract.
Beads of cold perspiration broke out upon their foreheads. A sickening numbness came into their hearts, and as in a dream they heard the derisive, exultant yells of the savages upon the sh.o.r.e.
VIII
AFTER THE INDIAN ATTACK
Below them rose the appalling roar of the hungry rapids and the dull, thunderous, monotonous undertone of the falls themselves.
Before their vision a vivid picture pa.s.sed of the scene they had so recently beheld--the onrushing, white piled billows above the cataract, gathering strength for their mighty leap--the final plunge of the resistless torrent--the bank of rainbow-coloured mist hovering in s.p.a.ce over a dark abyss--and far below and beyond the mist-bank the murky chasm, where a white seething flood was beating its wild anger out against jagged rocks in its mad endeavour to fight its way to freedom between narrow canyon walls rising in frowning cliffs on either side.
Impotent to resist the power that was drawing them down, Shad Trowbridge and Ungava Bob were certain beyond a doubt that presently they were to be hurled into this awful chasm, and that in all human probability but a few minutes more of life remained to them.
Then suddenly there flashed upon Bob"s memory the recollection of an island which he had observed when walking along the river bank from the falls to the portage trail.
He remembered that this island was of curious formation, with high polished cliffs rising on its upper end and on either side, like bulwarks to guard it from the rushing tide.
At its lower end a long, low, gravelly point reached downward, like a pencil point, among the swirling eddies. The gravel which formed this point, he had remarked at the time, had been deposited by the eddies created by the meeting of the waters where they rushed together from either side below the island.
With the recollection of the island came also a realisation that here possibly lay a means of escape. A quick estimate of the distance they had already drifted below the portage trail satisfied him that they were still perhaps half a mile above the island, and probably not too far amidstream to enable them to swing in upon it before it was pa.s.sed, in which case a landing might be made with comparative ease upon the gravelly point.
The canoe, as previously stated, was heading upstream, with Bob in the bow, Shad in the stern. It was necessary that they turn around and secure a view of the river in order to avoid possible reefs near the island sh.o.r.e, and to properly pick an available landing place.
But to attempt to turn the canoe itself in the swift current would in all probability result in fatal delay. Therefore, acting upon the moment"s instinct, Bob ceased paddling, arose, and himself quickly turned, seating himself face to the stern, shouting to Shad as he did so:
"Turn! I"ll steer!"
Shad had no doubt Bob had become demented, but without question obeyed the command. In this position what had previously been the stern of the canoe now became the bow, Shad Trowbridge the bowman and Ungava Bob the steersman.
The moment paddling ceased the canoe shot forward in the current, heading toward the white waters of the rapids. The manoeuvre had not been made a moment too soon, for directly before them, a little to the left, lay the island.
With a quick, dexterous turn of the paddle Bob swung the canoe toward the island sh.o.r.e farthest from the mainland and, close under the cliffs, caught the r.e.t.a.r.ding sh.o.r.e current. A few seconds later the bow of the little craft ground upon the gravelly point, Shad sprang ash.o.r.e, Bob at his heels, and the canoe was drawn after them to safety.
For a moment Bob and Shad looked at each other in silence, then Shad exclaimed simply: "Thank G.o.d!"
"Aye," said Bob reverently, "thank th" Lard. He were watchin" an"
guardin" us when we were thinkin" we was lost. "Tis th" Lard"s way, Shad."
"My G.o.d, Bob! Look at that!" exclaimed Shad, pointing toward the mad white waters below them. "If you hadn"t thought of this island, Bob, we"d be in there now--in there--dead! My G.o.d, what an escape! And such a death!"
Shad sank upon a bowlder, white and trembling. He was no coward, but he was highly imaginative at times. During the trying period in the canoe he was cool and brave. He had done his part at the paddle equally as well as Bob. He would have gone to his death without a visible tremor. But now the reaction had come, and his imagination ran riot with his reason.
"Why, Shad, what"s th" matter now?" asked Bob solicitously. "Were th"
strain at th" paddle too much? You looks sick."
"No--I"m all right--just foolish. I"m afraid you"ll think I"m not game, Bob."
"Oh, but I knows you is, Shad. I seen you turned over in th" Bay, Shad--an" I knows you"m wonderful brave."
"Thank you, Bob. I hope I deserve your opinion."
"I were terrible scairt first, when I finds th" canoe"s slippin" back toward th" rapid an" I"m seein" no way t" land," said Bob. "Then I stops bein" scairt an" has a feelin" that I don"t care--"
"Just as I felt," broke in Shad. "A sort of hopeless speculation on what was going to happen, but not much caring."
"Aye," continued Bob. "Then I thinks "twill be sore hard on Mother--my never goin" home--an" I prays th" Lard t" help us, an" soon"s I says "Amen" I thinks o" this island. "Twere th" Lard puts un in my head, Shad."
"I think," said Shad, "it was your quick wit and resourcefulness, Bob."
"No," Bob insisted positively, ""twere th" Lard. An", Shad, we must be thankin" th" Lard now."
Then Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge knelt by the side of the boulder, the former reverently, the latter courteously, while Bob prayed aloud:
"Dear Lard, Shad and me is wonderful thankful that you p"inted out t"
us th" landin" place on this island, an", Lard, we wants t" thank you.
We knows, Lard, if you hadn"t been p"intin" she out t" us, we"d be dead in th" rapids now, or handy t" un. We"ll never be forgettin".
An", Lard, keep clost t" Shad an" me always. Amen."
"That," said Shad, when they rose to their feet, "was the most honest, simple, straightforward prayer I ever heard offered. Thank you, Bob, for including me. If the Lord hears prayers, Bob, He heard yours, for it was honest and from the heart and to the point."
"He hears un, Shad, an" He answers un." There was a note of conviction in Bob"s tone that left no room for doubt.
"We"re here, because we"re here, because we"re here--" Shad began to sing. "Bob, I"m feeling all right now, and I guess I"ve got my nerve back again. Foolish, wasn"t it, to get frightened after it was all over? Let"s see, now, what the prospects are of getting away."
From an eminence in the centre of the island they surveyed their surroundings. The mainland lay not more than a short stone"s throwaway, but between it and the island the water ran as swift as a mill race. Some two hundred yards below the point on which they had landed the heavy white rapids began, and with but one exception the perpendicular wall of rock that formed the mainland sh.o.r.e extended to and beyond the white water.
This exception occurred about half-way between the island and the heavy rapids, where for a distance of some six or eight yards frost action had caused disintegration of the rock, and the wall sloped down toward the river at an angle of forty-five degrees.
At the foot of this slope, and on a level with the water, a narrow platform had been formed by the dislodged portion of the rock. Under the most favourable conditions exceedingly expert canoemen might succeed in making a landing here, but it was plain that the foothold offered was so narrow and so unstable that any attempt to make a landing upon it would prove perilous and more than likely fatal.
The island itself was oblong in shape and contained an area of three or four acres. Its rocky surface sustained a scant growth of gnarled black spruce and stunted white birch, with here and there patches of brush.
From their vantage point no sign of the Indians who had caused their trouble could be seen, and it was evident they had not descended the river bank below the portage trail.
"Well, what do you think of it, Bob?" Shad asked.
"I"m thinkin" now, th" Injuns are headin" for th" tilt up th" river, an" that they"ll be cleanin" un out an" burnin" un. Th" Injuns t" th"
post tells me they never comes below th" portage. They"s afraid o" th"
evil spirits o" th" falls. But they goes back in th" country sometimes an" circles around by th" Big Hill trail."
"But what do you think of trying to cross, and make a landing down there where the rock slopes?" inquired Shad.
"We"d never make un, Shad," decided Bob. "I knows th" handlin" o"
boats. I"m too uncertain in a canoe, an" so be you, Shad."
"What are we to do, then? We can"t stay here," insisted Shad.