ctated.

Just below him was the finish of the dangerous fall, and as so often
happens, the very last lap proved to be more heavily charged with
disaster than any of those above, even though they appeared to be far
worse.

Being a son of the wilderness, Owen Dugdale had probably never heard of
the kindred terrors that used to lie in wait for the bold mariners of
ancient Greece--the rock and the whirlpool known as Scylla and
Charybdis--if they missed being impaled upon the one they were apt to
be engulfed in the other--and yet here in the rapids of this furious
Saskatchewan feeder he was brought face to face with a proposition
exactly similar to that of mythology.

He strove valiantly to meet the occasion, and his sturdy sweep of the
paddle did send him away from the ugly pointed rock; but the last
whirlpool was so close that he was not enabled to fully recover in time
to throw his whole power into the second stroke; consequently his canoe
was caught in the outer edge of the swirl, and before one could even
wink twice it capsized.

This was not the first time Owen had met with such a disaster while
shooting rapids and he had his wits about him for all of the confusion
that surrounded him there.

His very first act was to clutch hold of the canoe, and throw all his
energies into the task of avoiding the deadly suction of the whirlpool,
for once he fell into its grip there must be only a question of seconds
ere he reached its vortex and went under.

Fortune, aided by his own violent efforts, favored him, and as a result
he managed to swim down the balance of the rapid, and reach the smoother
waters below, still hanging on with a desperate clutch to his poor old
boat, while his other hand gripped the paddle.

The canoe was full of water, but it did not sink, being buoyant enough
to keep on the surface; but Owen found it as much as he could do to push
the unwieldly thing along when he began to make for the nearest shore.

Exciting as this adventure had been, it was only an episode in a life
such as he had spent up in this vast region, where the first lesson a
boy learns is to take care of himself, and meet peril in any guise.

There was not the least doubt with regard to his ability to gain the
nearby shore with his wrecked canoe, even if left to himself.

Nevertheless, when his ears caught the sound of encouraging shouts, and
he realized that his perilous descent of the rapids had been witnessed
by sympathetic ey