track
is tortuous, with, it may be, abrupt turnings here and there, a bowman
is absolutely essential, and sometimes, indeed, may become the more
important steersman of the two.

One evening, long after the period when they left their native
encampment, the friends paddled their little vessel into the backwater
at the foot of a long rapid which roared in foaming white billows right
ahead of them, offering what seemed an effectual barrier to their
further progress--at least by water--and as the sides of the gorge
through which the river rushed were almost perpendicular, without margin
and with impenetrable bush everywhere, advance by land seemed equally
blocked.

Looking backward, Mozwa gave his friend an interrogative glance.
Nazinred replied with an affirmative nod, and, all four dipping their
paddles vigorously at the same moment, they shot out into the stream.
Almost before the canoe was caught by the current it swung quickly into
another eddy, which carried it up a few yards close under the frowning
cliffs. Here again the Indians paused, and gazed earnestly at the
foaming torrent ahead, which, to an unpractised eye, might have seemed a
raging flood, to enter which would ensure destruction.

And indeed the two guides seemed to entertain some such thoughts, for
they continued to gaze for a considerable time in silent inaction. Then
the bowman threw back another glance; the steersman replied with another
nod, and again the canoe shot out into the stream.

This time the struggle was more severe. A short distance above the
point where they entered it, a large rock reared its black head in
mid-stream. Below it there was the usual long stretch of backwater. To
reach the tail of this stretch was the object of the men, but the
intervening rush was so powerful that it swept them down like a cork, so
that they almost missed it despite their utmost efforts.

"Almost," however, is a hopeful phrase. They were not quite beyond the
influence of the eddy when they reached the end of the tail. A
superhuman effort might yet save them from being swept back to the point
far below that from which they had started. Mozwa was just the man to
make such an effort. Nazinred and the others were pre-eminently the men
to back him up.

"Ho!" cried Mozwa.

"Hoi!" shouted Nazinred, as they bent their backs and cracked their
sinews, and made the big veins stand up on their necks and foreheads.

A few seconds more and the canoe was