ful for it as, lifting the light cedar at every wrenching
stroke, I drove it toward the fall. Then a whirling mist shot up, there
was a deep booming in my ears, the canoe leaped out as into mid-air, and I
could feel her dropping bodily from beneath us. A heavy splash followed,
water was flying everywhere, and a boiling wave lapped in, but the paddle
bent under my hand, and breathless and half-blinded we shot out down the
tail rush into daylight again. One swift glance over my shoulder showed
the slanting spout of water behind Grace's pallid face. The fall
apparently must have been more than a fathom in three yards or so, and I
wondered how we had ever come down it alive.

Then, with labored breathing and heart that thumped painfully, I plied the
paddle, while the craft swung off at a tangent across the dark green
whirling which, marked by white concentric rings, swung round and round a
down-sucking hollow in the center. Twice we shot past the latter, and had
time to notice how a battered log of driftwood tilted endways and went
down, but as on the second revolution we swept toward a jutting fang of
quartz I made a fierce effort, because here the stream had piled a few
yards of shingle against the foot of the rock. The craft yielded to the
impulse and drove lurching among the backwash. Then there followed a
sickening crash. Water poured in deep over her depressed side as she
swayed downward and over, and the next moment, with one hand on the ragged
quartz and another gripping Grace's arm, I was struggling in the stream.
Fortunately the dress fabric held, and my failing strength was equal to
the strain, for I found a foothold, and crawled out upon the shingle,
dragging her after me. Then rising, I lurched forward and went down
headforemost with a clatter among the stones, where I lay fighting hard
for breath and overcome by the revulsion of relief, though it may have
been the mere physical overpressure on heart and lungs that had prostrated
me.

CHAPTER XVI

WHEN THE WATERS ROSE

Presently, while I lay upon the shingle panting, a wet hand touched my
head, and looking up with dazzled eyes I saw Grace bending down beside me.
The water drained from her garments, she was shivering, but at least she
had suffered no injury.

"Ralph! Ralph! tell me you are not hurt!" she said, and something in her
voice and eyes thrilled me through, but, though I struggled to do so, I
could not as yet overcome the weakness, and lay