s deafening. The tops of the
huge pines that stood along the banks would wave and toss as the fiery
line reached them, and then burst into blaze, as if they were but the
mighty torches that lighted the path of the passing destruction. In all
his long and eventful life, passed amid peril, it is doubtful if the
trapper had ever been in a wilder scene. The rapids were ahead and the
fire behind and on either side. The great mass of flame had not yet
rolled abreast the boat, but the blazing brands were already falling in
advance. It was not a moment to hesitate; nor was he a man to falter
when action was called for.

By this time the boat had come nigh the upper rift of the rapids, and
the motion of the downward suction was beginning to tell on its
progress. The trapper shipped his oars and, lifting his paddle, placed
himself in a kneeling posture, gazing down stream. The fire was almost
upon them, and the smoke too dense for sight. But pressing as was the
emergency, neither man touched his paddle to the water, but let the boat
go down with the quickening current to the verge of the rapids, where
the sharp dip of the decline would send it flying.

"This be an onsartin ventur', Henry," cried the trapper, shouting to his
comrade from the smoke that now made it impossible for the young man,
even at only the boat's length, to see his person. "This be an onsartin
ventur', and the Lord only knows how it will eend. Ye know the waters as
well as I do; and ye know the p'ints where things must be did right.
We'll beat the smoke arter we make the fust dip and git out of the
thickest of it in the fust half of the distance, onless somethin'
happens. Let her go with the current, boy, ontil yer sight comes to ye,
for the current knows where it's goin', and that's more than a mortal
can tell in this infarnal smoke. Here we go, boy!" shouted the old man,
as the boat balanced in its perilous flight on the sharp edge of the
uppermost rift. "Here we go, boy!" he shouted out of the smoke and the
rush of waters, "it's hotter than Tophet where we be and it matters
mighty leetle what meets us below."

II

To those who have had no experience in running rapids, no adequate
conception can be given touching what can with truth be called one of
the most exciting experiences that man can pass through. The very
velocity with which the flight is made is enough of itself to make the
sensation startling. The skill which is required on the part of the