ng topaz between banks of emerald! What but
good luck could come on such a day?

The canoe was gliding down the last smooth stretch. Alden lifted his
head, as they turned the corner, and for the first time saw the passage
close before him. His face went white, and he set his teeth.

The left-hand branch of the river, cleft by the rocky point of the
island, dropped at once into a tumult of yellow foam and raved downward
along the northern shore. The right-hand branch swerved away to the
east, running with swift, silent fury. On the lower edge of this
desperate race of brown billows, a huge whirlpool formed and dissolved
every two or three minutes, now eddying round in a wide backwater into a
rocky bay on the end of the island, now swept away by the rush of waves
into the white rage of the rapids below.

There was the secret pathway. The trick was, to dart across the
right-hand current at the proper moment, catch the rim of the whirlpool
as it swung backward, and let it sweep you around to the end of the
island. It was easy enough at low water. But now?

The smooth waves went crowding and shouldering down the slope as if they
were running to a fight. The river rose and swelled with quick, uneven
passion. The whirlpool was in its place one minute; the next, it was
blotted out; everything rushed madly downward--and below was hell.

Jean checked the boat for a moment, quivering in the strong
current, waiting for the TOURNIQUET to form again. Five seconds--ten
seconds--"Now!" he cried.

The canoe shot obliquely into the stream, driven by strong, quick
strokes of the paddles. It seemed almost to leap from wave to wave. All
was going well. The edge of the whirlpool was near. Then came the crest
of a larger wave,--slap--into the boat. Alden shrank involuntarily from
the cold water, and missed his stroke. An eddy caught the bow and shoved
it out. The whirlpool receded, dissolved. The whole river rushed down
upon the canoe and carried it away like a leaf.

Who says that thought is swift and clear in a moment like that? Who
talks about the whole of a man's life passing before him in a flash of
light? A flash of darkness! Thought is paralyzed, dumb. "What a fool!"
"Good-bye!" "If--" That is about all it can say. And if the moment
is prolonged, it says the same thing over again, stunned, bewildered,
impotent. Then?--The rocking waves; the sinking boat; the roar of the
fall; the swift overturn; the icy, blinding, strangling wat