It requires nerve and
judgment to shoot a frothing rapid. Just then, however, the task
promised to be a relief to him. His companion was very alluring, and
very gracious now and then, and that afternoon he found it remarkably
difficult to remember that she was the daughter of his employer, and
that there were a good many barriers between her and himself.

"Yes," he said, "I think it would be safe enough if you'll sit quite
still."

Three or four strokes of the paddle drove the canoe out into the
stream, and after that, all he had to do was to hold her straight.
This was, however, not particularly easy, for the mad rush of water
deflected by the boulders swung her here and there, and the channel
was studded with foam-lapped masses of stone. Gazing forward, intent
and strung-up, he checked her now and then with a feathering
backstroke of the paddle, while the boulders flashed up toward her out
of the spray, and the pines ashore reeled by. The foam stood high
about the hollowed, upswept bow, and at times boiled a handbreadth
above the depressed waist, but, while the canoe swept on like a
toboggan, none came in. There was more than a spice of risk in it, and
Ida, who knew what the result would be if her companion's nerve
momentarily deserted him, now and then glanced over her shoulder. When
she did so, he smiled reassuringly, leaning forward with wet hands
clenched hard on the flashing paddle. She felt that he was to be
relied on.

Then she abandoned herself to the exhilaration of the furious descent,
watching boulder and eddy stream by, while the spray that whirled
about her brought the crimson to her face. At length the pace grew a
little slacker, and Weston drove the canoe into an eddy where a short
rapid divided them from the smooth green strip of water that poured
over what could almost be called a fall. Then she turned toward him
with glowing face.

"That was splendid!" she exclaimed. "Can't we go right on down the
fall?"

Weston ran the canoe in upon the shingle before he answered her.

"No," he said, though it cost him an effort not to do as she wished,
"I'm sorry I can't take you down."

Ida glanced at the slide of silky green water that leaped out over a
shelf of rock and fell through a haze of spray into a whirling pool.
It did not look altogether attractive, and now that she could see it
more clearly she rather shrank from it; but she was accustomed to
having exactly what she wished, and her companion