would be glad when at last the
mountains were passed and the prairie country to the eastward reached.

On the next day they continued among the high hills for several hours,
although at length the river expanded into a wide reach which gave
them a little free paddling. In such contractions of the stream as
they met it seemed to them that the rocks were larger, the water
deeper, and each hour becoming more powerful than it had been.
Advancing cautiously, they perhaps had covered thirty miles when they
came to a part of the stream not more than three hundred yards wide,
where the current was very smooth but of considerable velocity. Below
this the mountains crowded still closer in to the stream, seeming to
rise almost directly from the edge of the banks and to tower nearly
two thousand feet in height.

"We must be getting close to the big portage now," said Rob to Moise,
as they reached this part of the river.

"Yes," said Moise, "pretty soon no more water we'll could ron."

Moise's speech was almost prophetic. In less than half an hour after
that moment they met with the first really serious accident of the
entire journey, and one which easily might have resulted disastrously
to life as well as to property.

They were running a piece of water where a flat rapid dropped down
without much disturbance toward a deep bend where the current swung
sharply to the right. A little island was at one side, on which there
had been imbedded the roots of a big tree, which had come down as
driftwood. The submerged branch of this tree, swinging up and down in
the violent current, made one of the dangerous "sweepers" which
canoemen dread. Both Rob and Moise thought there was plenty of room to
get by, but just as they cleared the basin-like foot of the rapid the
_Mary Ann_ suddenly came to a stop, hard and fast amidships, on a
naked limb of the tree which had been hidden in the discolored waters
at the time.

As is usual in all such accidents, matters happened very quickly. The
first thing they knew the boat was lifted almost bodily from the
water. There was the cracking noise of splintering wood, and an
instant later, even as the white arm of the tree sunk once more into
the water, the _Mary Ann_ sunk down, weak and shattered, her back
broken square across, although she still was afloat and free.

Rob gave a sudden shout of excitement and began to paddle swiftly to
the left, where the bank was not far away. Moise joined him, and