much for them;
it nearly overturned the canoe, and filled it so full of water that they
were compelled to land again, unload, and empty it.

"Dat is too bad," observed Rollin, with a growl of discontent.

"It might have been worse," said Ian.

"Bah!" returned Rollin.

"Pooh!" ejaculated Victor.

"Very good," said Ian; "I only hope the truth of my remark mayn't be
proved to both of you."

It has been asserted by the enemies of Ian Macdonald that the
catastrophe which followed was the result of a desire on his part to
prove the truth of his own remark, but we acquit him of such baseness.
Certain it is, however, that the very next rapid they came to they ran
straight down upon a big stone over which the water was curling in grand
fury.

"Hallo!" shouted Ian, in sudden alarm, dipping his paddle powerfully on
the right.

"Hi!" yelled Rollin, losing his head and dipping wildly on the same
side--which was wrong.

"Look out!" roared Victor.

He might as well have roared "Look in," for any good that could have
come of it. There was a crash; the canoe burst up and doubled down, the
bow was hurled high in the air, the rest of it lay out limp, and
disappeared. Rollin went clean over the rock, Victor went round it, and
Ian, after grasping it for a second, went under it apparently, for, like
the canoe, he disappeared. That rapid treated these voyagers roughly.
Of the three, Michel Rollin appeared to suffer most. After sending him
round the stone in a rush of foam that caused his arms and legs to go
round like a mad windmill, it sucked him down, rubbed his head on the
boulders at the bottom, shot him up feet foremost into the air, received
him on its raging breast again, spun him round like a teetotum, and, at
last, hurled him almost contemptuously upon a sandbank at its foot.

Ian and Victor also received a severe buffeting before gaining the same
sandbank, where they faced each other in a blaze of surprise and horror!

Unable to find words to express their feelings, they turned
simultaneously, and waded in silence from the sandbank to the shore.

Here a consultation of the most doleful character that can be imagined
was entered into.

"Everything lost," said Ian, sitting down on a bank, and wringing the
water out of his garments.

"Not even a gun saved," said Victor gravely.

"No, nor von mout'ful of pemmican," cried Rollin, wildly grasping his
hair and glaring.

The poor fellow seemed to his friends to h