eak in the river below. Swiftly it came into sight--a wonderful, long,
smooth, red slant of water, a swelling mound, a huge back-curling wave,
another and another, a sea of frothy, uplifting crests, leaping and
tumbling and diminishing down to the narrowing apex of the rapid. It was
a frightful sight, yet it thrilled Shefford. Joe worked the steering-oar
back and forth and headed the boat straight for the middle of the
incline. The boat reached the round rim, gracefully dipped with a heavy
sop, and went shooting down. The wind blew wet in Shefford's face. He
stood erect, thrilling, fascinated, frightened. Then he seemed to feel
himself lifted; the curling wave leaped at the boat; there was a shock
that laid him flat; and when he rose to his knees all about him was roar
and spray and leaping, muddy waves. Shock after shock jarred the boat.
Splashes of water stung his face. And then the jar and the motion, the
confusion and roar, gradually lessened until presently Shefford rose to
see smooth water ahead and the long, trembling rapid behind.

"Get busy, bailer," yelled Joe. "Pretty soon you'll be glad you have to
bail--so you can't see!"

There were several inches of water in the bottom of the boat and
Shefford learned for the first time the expediency of a shovel in the
art of bailing.

"That tarpaulin worked powerful good," went on Joe. "And it saves the
women. Now if it just don't bust on a big wave! That one back there was
little."

When Shefford had scooped out all the water he went forward to see how
Fay and Jane and Lassiter had fared. The women were pale, but composed.
They had covered their heads.

"But the dreadful roar!" exclaimed Fay.

Lassiter looked shaken for once.

"Shore I'd rather taken a chance meetin' them Mormons on the way out,"
he said.

Shefford spoke with an encouraging assurance which he did not himself
feel. Almost at the moment he marked a silence that had fallen into the
canyon; then it broke to a low, dull, strange roar.

"Aha! Hear that?" The Mormon shook his shaggy head. "Reckon we're in
Cataract Canyon. We'll be standing on end from now on. Hang on to her,
boys!"

Danger of this unusual kind had brought out a peculiar levity in the
somber Mormon--a kind of wild, gay excitement. His eyes rolled as he
watched the river ahead and he puffed out his cheek with his tongue.

The rugged, overhanging walls of the canyon grew sinister in Shefford's
sight. They were jaws. And the river--