boatman is of the finest order. Eye and hand and readiest wit must work
in swift connection. Some who read these lines perhaps have--shall we
say--enjoyed the sensation which we have always found impossible to
describe in words? These, at least, will appreciate the difficulty of
our task, and also the peril which surrounded the trapper and his
companion.

The first flight down which the boat glanced was a long one. The river
bed sloped away in a straight direction for nigh on to fifty rods, and
at an angle so steep that the water, although the bottom was rough,
fairly flattened itself as it ran; and the channel where the current
was the deepest gave forth a serpentine sound as it whizzed downward.
The smoke, which hung heavily over the stretch from shore to shore, was
too dense for the eye to penetrate a yard. Amid the smoke sparks
floated, and brands, crackling as they fell, plunged through it into the
steaming water. Guidance of the frail craft was, as the trapper had
predicted, out of the question; the two men could only keep their
position as they went streaming downward. They kept their seats like
statues, knowing well that their safety lay in allowing their light
shell to follow, without the least interruption, the pressure of the
swift current.

Half down the flight the volume of smoke was parted, by some freak of
the wind, from shore to shore, and for a couple of rods they saw the
water, the blazing banks, the fiery tree-tops and each other. The
trapper turned his face, blackened and stained by the grimy cinders,
toward his companion and gave one glance, in which humor and excitement
were equally mingled. His mouth was open, but the words were lost in the
roar of the flame and the rush of the water. He had barely time to toss
a hand upward, as if by gesture he would make good the impossibility of
speech, before face and hand alike faded from Herbert's eyes as the boat
plunged again into the smoke.

The next instant the boat launched down the final pitch of the declivity
and shot far out into the smooth water that eddied in a huge circle in
the pool below. The smoke was at this point less compact, for through it
the blazing pines on either flamed partially into view.

"It's the devil's own work, boy, for sartin," cried the trapper, "and
the fool or the knave that started the fire oughter be toasted. I trust
the pups will be reasonable and come down with the current. Has the fire
touched ye anywhere?"

"Not