he remaining woman, went swirling on
into the canyon.

CHAPTER XIII

All this I saw, and so fascinated was I that I forgot our own peril. I
heard a shrill scream of fear; I saw the solitary woman crouch down in
the bottom of the scow, burying her face in her hands; I saw the scow
rise, hover, and then plunge downward into the angry maw of the canyon.

The river hurried us on helplessly. We were in the canyon now. The air
grew dark. On each side, so close it seemed we could almost touch them
with our oars, were black, ancient walls, towering up dizzily. The river
seemed to leap and buck, its middle arching four feet higher than its
sides, a veritable hog-back of water. It bounded on in great billows,
green, hillocky and terribly swift, like a liquid toboggan slide. We
plunged forward, heaved aloft, and the black, moss-stained walls
brindled past us.

About midway in the canyon is a huge basin, like the old crater of a
volcano, sloping upwards to the pine-fringed skyline. Here was a giant
eddy, and here, circling round and round, was the runaway scow. The
forsaken woman was still crouching on it. The light was quite wan, and
we were half blinded by the flying spray, but I clung to my place at the
bow and watched intently.

"Keep clear of that scow," I heard some one shout. "Avoid the eddy."

It was almost too late. The ill-fated scow spun round and swooped down
on us. In a moment we would have been struck and overturned, but I saw
Jim and the Jam-wagon give a desperate strain at the oars. I saw the
scow swirling past, just two feet from us. I looked again--then with a
wild panic of horror I saw that the crouching figure was that of Berna.

I remember jumping--it must have been five feet--and I landed half in,
half out of the water. I remember clinging a moment, then pulling myself
aboard. I heard shouts from the others as the current swept them into
the canyon. I remember looking round and cursing because both sweeps had
been lost overboard, and lastly I remember bending over Berna and
shouting in her ear:

"All right, I'm with you!"

If an angel had dropped from high heaven to her rescue I don't believe
the girl could have been more impressed. For a moment she stared at me
unbelievingly. I was kneeling by her and she put her hands on my
shoulders as if to prove to herself that I was real. Then, with a
half-sob, half-cry of joy, she clasped her arms tightly around me.
Something in her look, something in