generally shot the rapid when the water was low, and although
the river was now rolling down in flood, it was not impossible for men
with steady nerves to take the canoe safely through to the tail-pool. He
wondered whether Black Steve had been drinking, but on the whole did not
think he had, and admitting that the fellow knew the streams and eddies
best, let him have his way. At length, however, Scott threw down his
pole.

"We're far enough and I want my supper," he said. "Get hold of the
paddles and let her shoot across."

Driscoll grumbled half aloud, but made no determined protest, and
paddling hard they headed obliquely for the opposite bank. As they
forged through the glittering water the current swept them down and
Thirlwell noted that it was running faster than he had thought. The
river was wide and the ragged pines got indistinct as they rolled back
up stream. It looked as if the canoe were standing still and the banks
moving on, only that the gleaming spray-cloud got rapidly nearer. It
stretched across from bank to bank, and a dull roar that rose and fell
came out of the wavering mist. For the most part, the current was
smooth, but here and there broken lines of foam streaked its surface,
and sometimes the canoe swung round in revolving eddies.

Still the dark rocks ahead got nearer and at length Driscoll made a sign
that they could stop paddling. He occupied the stern, where he could
steer the craft. Thirlwell, feeling breathless after his efforts, was
glad to stop, and looked about as he knelt in the middle. He had often
thought it was from the river one best marked the savage austerity of
the wilderness. In the bush, one's view was broken by rocks and trunks,
but from the wide expanse of water one could look across the belt of
forest that ran back, desolate and silent, to Hudson Bay. Here and there
the hazy outline of a rocky height caught the eye, but for the most
part, the landscape had no charm of varied beauty. It was monotonous,
somber, and forbidding.

The canoe was now thirty or forty yards from the rough bank, and
drifting fast. Driscoll obviously meant to land on a patch of shingle
lower down, which was the only safe spot for some distance. At low-water
one could run a canoe aground among the ledges that bordered the slack
inner edge of the rapid, but when the Shadow rose in flood the current
broke and boiled furiously among the rocks. One faces forward when
paddling, and while Thirlwell watche