The roar of the falls, the lighter and shriller raging of the rapids,
had at last died out behind the thick masses of the forest, as Barnes
worked his way down the valley. The heat in the windless underbrush,
alive with insects, was stifling. He decided to make once more for the
bank of the stream, in the hope that its character might by this time
have changed, so as to afford him an easier and more open path.
Pressing aside to his left, he presently saw the green gloom lighten
before him. Blue sky and golden light came low through the thinning
trees, and then a gleam of unruffled water. He was nearing the edge
now; and because the underbrush was so thick about him he began to go
cautiously.
All at once, he felt his feet sinking; and the screen of thick bushes
before him leaned away as if bowed by a heavy gust. Desperately he
clutched with both hands at the undergrowth and saplings on either
side; but they all gave way with him. In a smother of leafage and
blinding, lashing branches he sank downwards--at first, as it seemed,
slowly, for he had time to think many things while his heart was
jumping in his throat. Then, shooting through the lighter bushy
companions of his fall, and still clutching convulsively at those upon
which he had been able to lay his grasp, he plunged feet first into a
dark water.
The water was deep and cold. Barnes went down straight, and clear
under, with a strangled gasp. His feet struck, with some force, upon
a tangled, yielding mass, from which he rose again with a spring.
His head shot up above the surface, above the swirl of foam,
leafage, and debris; and splutteringly he gulped his lungs full of
air. But before he could clear his eyes or his nostrils, or
recover his self-possession, he was stealthily dragged down again.
And with a pang of horror he realized that he was caught by the foot.
A powerful swimmer, Barnes struck out mightily with his arms and came
to the surface again at once, rising beyond the shoulders. But by so
much the more was he violently snatched back again, strangling and
desperate, before he had time to empty his lungs and catch breath.
This time the shock sobered him, flashing the full peril of the
situation before his startled consciousness. With a tremendous effort
of will he stopped his struggling, and contented himself with a
gentle paddling to keep upright. This time he came more softly to the
surface, clear beyond the chin. The foam and debris and turbulence of
little waves seethed about his lips, and the sunlight danced
confusingly in his streaming eyes; but he gulped a fresh lungful
before he again went under.
[Illustration: "He realized that he was caught by the foot."]
Paddling warily now, he emerged again at once, and, with arms
outspread, brought himself to a precarious equilibrium, his mouth just
above the surface so long as he held his head well back. Keeping very
still, he let his bewildered wits clear, and the agitated surface
settle to quiet.
He was in a deep, tranquil cove, hardly stirred by an eddy. Some ten
paces farther out from shore the main current swirled past sullenly,
as if weary from the riot of falls and rapids. Across the current a
little space of sand-beach, jutting out from the leafy shore, shone
golden in the sun. Up and down the stream, as far as his extremely
restricted vision would suffer him to see, nothing but thick,
overhanging branches, and the sullen current. Very cautiously he
turned his head--though to do so brought the water over his lips--and
saw behind him just what he expected. The high, almost perpendicular
bank was scarred by a gash of bright, raw, reddish earth, where the
brink had slipped away beneath his weight.
Just within reach of his hand lay, half submerged, the thick, leafy
top of a fallen poplar sapling, its roots apparently still clinging
to the bank. Gently he laid hold of it, testing it, in the hope that
it might prove solid enough to enable him to haul himself out. But it
came away instantly in his grasp. And once more, in this slight
disturbance of his equilibrium, his head went under.
Barnes was disappointed, but he was now absolutely master of his
self-possession. In a moment he had regained the only position in
which he could breathe comfortably. Then, because the sun was beating
down too fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy
top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade.
As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off
and forsake him in his plight.
A very little consideration, accompanied by a cautious investigation
with his free foot, speedily convinced Barnes, who was a practical
woodsman, that the trap in which he found himself caught could be
nothing else than a couple of interlaced, twisted branches, or roots,
of some tree which had fallen into the pool in a former caving-in of
the bank. In that dark deep wherein his foot was held fast, his mind's
eye could see it all well enough--the water-soaked, brown-green,
slimy, inexorable coil, which had yielded to admit the unlucky member,
then closed upon the ankle like the jaws of an otter trap. He could
feel that grip--not severe, but uncompromisingly firm, clutching the
joint. As he considered, he began to draw comfort, however, from the
fact that his invisible captor had displayed a certain amount of give
and take. This elasticity meant either that it was a couple of
branches slight enough to be flexible that held him, or that the
submerged tree itself was a small one, not too steadfastly anchored
down. He would free himself easily enough, he thought, as soon as he
should set himself about it coolly and systematically.
Taking a long breath he sank his head under the surface, and peered
downward through the amber-brown but transparent gloom. Little gleams
of brighter light came twisting and quivering in from the swirls of
the outer current. Barnes could not discern the bottom of the pool,
which was evidently very deep; but he could see quite clearly the
portion of the sunken tree in whose interwoven branches he was held. A
shimmering golden ray fell just on the spot where his foot vanished to
the ankle between two stout curves of what looked like slimy brown
cable or sections of a tense snake body.
It was, beyond question, a nasty-looking trap; and Barnes could not
blink the fact that he was in a tight place. He lifted his face above
the surface, steadied himself carefully, and breathed deeply and
quietly for a couple of minutes, gathering strength for a swift and
vigorous effort. Then, filling his lungs very moderately, the better
to endure a strain, he stooped suddenly downward, deep into the
yellow gloom, and began wrenching with all his force at those oozy
curves, striving to drag them apart. They gave a little, but not
enough to release the imprisoned foot. Another moment, and he had to
lift his head again for breath.
After some minutes of rest, he repeated the choking struggle, but, as
before, in vain. He could move the jaws of the trap just enough to
encourage him a little, but not enough to gain his release. Again and
again he tried it, again and again to fail just as he imagined himself
on the verge of success; till at last he was forced, for the moment,
to acknowledge defeat, finding himself so exhausted that he could
hardly keep his mouth above water. Drawing down a stiffish branch of
the sapling, he gripped it between his teeth and so held himself
upright while he rested his arms. This was a relief to nerves as well
as muscles, because it made his balance, on which he depended for the
chance to breathe, so much the less precarious.
As he hung there pondering, held but a bare half-inch above
drowning, the desperateness of the situation presented itself to him
in appalling clearness. How sunny and warm and safe, to his
woods-familiar eyes, looked the green forest world about him. No
sound broke the mild tranquillity of the solitude, except, now and
then, an elfish gurgle of the slow current, or the sweetly cheerful
_tsic-a-dee-dee_ of an unseen chicadee, or, from the intense blue
overhead, the abrupt, thin whistle of a soaring fish-hawk. To Barnes
it all seemed such a safe, friendly world, his well-understood
intimate since small boyhood. Yet here it was, apparently, turned
smooth traitor at last, and about to destroy him as pitilessly as
might the most scorching desert or blizzard-scourged ice-field. A
silent rage burned suddenly through all his veins--which was well,
since the cold of that spring-fed river had already begun to finger
stealthily about his heart. A delicate little pale-blue butterfly,
like a periwinkle-petal come to life, fluttered over Barnes's grim,
upturned face, and went dancing gaily out across the shining water,
joyous in the sun. In its dancing it chanced to dip a hair's-breadth
too low. The treacherous, bright surface caught it, held it; and
away it swept, struggling in helpless consternation against this
unexpected doom. Before it passed out of Barnes's vision a great trout
rose and gulped it down. Its swift fate, to Barnes's haggard eyes,
seemed an analogue in little to his own.
But it was not in the woodsman's fibre to acknowledge himself actually
beaten, either by man or fate, so long as there remained a spark in
his brain to keep his will alive. He presently began searching with
his eyes among the branches of the poplar sapling for one stout enough
to serve him as a lever. With the right kind of a stick in his hand,
he told himself, he might manage to pry apart the jaws of the trap and
get his foot free. At last his choice settled upon a branch that he
thought would serve his turn. He was just about to reach up and break
it off, when a slight crackling in the underbrush across the stream
caught his ear.
His woodsman's instinct kept him motionless as he turned his eyes to
the spot. In the thick leafage there was a swaying, which moved down
along the bank, but he could not see what was causing it. Softly he
drew over a leafy branch of the sapling till it made him a perfect
screen, then he peered up the channel to find out what the unseen
wayfarer was following.
A huge salmon, battered and gashed from a vain struggle to leap the
falls, was floating, belly-upward, down the current, close to Barnes's
side of the stream. A gentle eddy caught it, and drew it into the
pool. Sluggishly it came drifting down toward Barnes's hidden face. In
the twigs of the poplar sapling it came to a halt, its great scarlet
gills barely moving as the last of life flickered out of it.
Barnes now understood quite well that unseen commotion which had
followed, along shore, the course of the dying salmon. It was no
surprise to him whatever when he saw a huge black bear emerge upon the
yellow sandspit and stand staring across the current. Apparently, it
was staring straight at Barnes's face, upturned upon the surface of
the water. But Barnes knew it was staring at the dead salmon. His
heart jumped sickeningly with sudden hope, as an extravagant notion
flashed into his brain. Here was his rescuer--a perilous one, to be
sure--vouchsafed to him by some whim of the inscrutable forest-fates.
He drew down another branchy twig before his face, fearful lest his
concealment should not be adequate. But in his excitement he disturbed
his balance, and with the effort of his recovery the water swirled
noticeably all about him. His heart sank. Assuredly, the bear would
take alarm at this and be afraid to come for the fish.
But to his surprise the great beast, which had seemed to hesitate,
plunged impetuously into the stream. Nothing, according to a bear's
knowledge of life, could have made that sudden disturbance in the pool
but some fish-loving otter or mink, intent upon seizing the booty.
Indignant at the prospect of being forestalled by any such furtive
marauder, the bear hurled himself forward with such force that the
spray flew high into the branches, and the noise of his splashing was
a clear notification that trespassers and meddlers had better keep
off. That salmon was his, by right of discovery; and he was going to
have it.
The bear, for all the seeming clumsiness of his bulk, was a
redoubtable swimmer; and almost before Barnes had decided clearly on
his proper course of action those heavy, grunting snorts and vast
expulsions of breath were at his ear. Enormously loud they sounded,
shot thus close along the surface of the water. Perforce, Barnes made
up his mind on the instant.
The bunch of twigs which had arrested the progress of the floating
salmon lay just about an arm's length from Barnes's face. Swimming
high, his mighty shoulders thrusting up a wave before him which buried
Barnes's head safely from view, the bear reached the salmon. Grabbing
it triumphantly in his jaws, he turned to make for shore again.
This was Barnes's moment. Both arms shot out before him. Through the
suffocating confusion his clutching fingers encountered the bear's
haunches. Sinking into the long fur, they closed upon it with a grip
of steel. Then, instinctively, Barnes shut his eyes and clenched his
teeth, and waited for the shock, while his lungs felt as if they would
burst in another moment.
But it was no long time he had to wait--perhaps two seconds, while
amazement in the bear's brain translated itself through panic into
action. Utterly horrified by this inexplicable attack, from the rear
and from the depths, the bear threw himself shoulder high from the
water, and hurled himself forward with all his strength. Barnes felt
those tremendous haunches heaving irresistibly beneath his clutching
fingers. He felt himself drawn out straight, and dragged ahead till he
thought his ankle would snap. Almost he came to letting go, to save
the ankle. But he held, on, as much with his will as with his grip.
Then, the slimy thing in the depths gave way. He felt himself being
jerked through the water--free. His fingers relaxed their clutch on
the bear's fur--and he came to the surface, gasping, blinking, and
coughing.
For a moment or two he paddled softly, recovering his breath and
shaking the water from nostrils and eyes. He had an instant of
apprehensiveness, lest the bear should turn upon him and attack him at
a disadvantage; and by way of precaution he gave forth the most savage
and piercing yell that his labouring lungs were capable of. But he saw
at once that on this score he had nothing to fear. It was a
well-frightened bear, there swimming frantically for the sandspit;
while the dead salmon, quite forgotten, was drifting slowly away on
the sullen current.
Barnes's foot was hurting fiercely, but his heart was light. Swimming
at leisure, so as to just keep head against the stream, he watched the
bear scuttle out upon the sand. Once safe on dry land, the great beast
turned and glanced back with a timid air to see what manner of being
it was that had so astoundingly assailed him. Man he had seen
before--but never man swimming like an otter; and the sight was
nothing to reassure him. One longing look he cast upon the salmon, now
floating some distance away; but that, to his startled mind, was just
a lure of this same terrifying and perfidious creature whose bright
grey eyes were staring at him so steadily from the surface of the
water. He turned quickly and made off into the woods, followed by a
loud, daunting laugh which spurred his pace to a panicky gallop.
When he was gone, Barnes swam to the sandspit. There he wrung out his
dripping clothes, and lay down in the hot sand to let the sun soak
deep into his chilled veins.