be on the hind sweep in the third
boat with him."

In addition to a head and hind sweepman each barge carried a bailer, for
there were rapids where at any stage of the water a boat partially
filled. The men now silently took their places and Bruce on his platform
gripped the sweep-handle and nodded--

"Cast off."

The barge drifted a little distance slowly, then faster; the current
caught it and it started on its journey like some great swift-swimming
bird. As he glided into the shadow of the bridge Saunders started;
before he turned the bend Smaltz was waving his farewells, and as
Meadows vanished from his sight the fourth boat, the heaviest loaded,
was on its way. Bruce drew a deep breath, rest was behind him, the next
three days would be hours of almost continual anxiety and strain.

The forenoon of the first day was comparatively easy going, though there
were places enough for an amateur to wreck; but the real battle with the
river began at the Pine Creek Rapids--the battle that no experienced
boatman ever was rash enough to prophesy the result. The sinister
stream, with its rapids and whirlpools, its waterfalls and dangerous
channel-rocks, had claimed countless victims in the old days of the gold
rush and there were years together since the white people had settled
at Meadows that no boat had gone even a third of its length. Wherever
the name of the river was known its ill-fame went with it, and those
feared it most who knew it best. Only the inexperienced, those too
unfamiliar with water to recognize its perils so long as nothing
happened, spoke lightly of its dangers.

Above the Pine Creek Rapids, Bruce swung into an eddy to tie up for
lunch; besides, he wanted to see how Smaltz handled his sweep. Smaltz
came on, grinning, and Porcupine Jim, bare-headed, his yellow pompadour
shining in the sun like corn-silk, responded instantly to every order
with a stroke. They were working together perfectly, Bruce noted with
relief, and the landing Smaltz made in the eddy was quite as good as the
one he had made himself.

Once more Bruce had to admit that if Smaltz boasted he always made good
his boast. He believed there was little doubt but that he was equal to
the work.

An ominous roar was coming from the rapids, a continuous rumble like
thunder far back in the hills. It was not the most cheerful sound by
which to eat and the meal was brief. The gravity of the boatmen who knew
the river was contagious and the grin