lose up as we can; then
we'll get ashore, walk up along, and have a look at the place. Perhaps
when we come to it, it will not look so bad as it does from here."

The bank on either hand was so densely overgrown with shrubs that
landing seemed out of the question; but, seizing their paddles, the two
adventurers drove the boat up against the rapidly strengthening current.
Presently a tiny strip of beach, a yard wide by ten or twelve yards
long, came into view; and here they beached the boat, making her well
fast in order that the current might not sweep her away. The rapids
were now less than a hundred feet distant, and the rush of the water
brought down with it a cool, spray-laden breeze that was infinitely
refreshing after the baking breathlessness of the stream below; but the
roar of the chafing waters was so loud that it was almost impossible to
make one's voice heard; Phil therefore scrambled up the steep bank, and
signed to Dick to follow. Fighting their way through the dense
undergrowth, through which they were obliged to cut much of their way
with their hangers, they at length came out upon a jutting spur of bare
rock which overhung the rapids at a height of some fifty feet, and from
this point they were able to obtain a tolerably distinct view of the
whole gorge. And, as Dick had suggested, when they came to look at the
place from close at hand, it did not appear to be nearly so
impracticable as they had at first imagined.

The bed of the channel was badly encumbered with rocks, it is true, but
only for about two hundred feet at the lower end; the rest of it, while
showing a partially submerged rock here and there, was on the whole
remarkably clear, the water rushing over its bed in a swift,
glass-smooth stream. Even where the rocks were thickest, it was
apparent that there was a very well-defined channel between them, up
which a carefully navigated boat might easily pass--if propulsive power
enough were applied to her to overcome the downward rush of the stream.
But how was that power to be obtained? Certainly not by paddling; the
stream was too swift for that. But it was just possible that it might
be done by warping if a warp long enough and strong enough could be
obtained. Moreover the warp need not be so prodigiously long, for now
that they came to look at the rapids at close quarters they saw that
their original estimate of their length had been a long way over the
mark; it was much nearer a quart