When the boys were compelled to jump overboard, they could see that the
water was only about two feet deep, but they did not know whether they
could stand up against the fierce current. They found that they could,
although they had to move slowly to avoid being swept off their feet.
Harry's canoe was easily pushed off the rock on which it had run, and
the moment it was out of the way the other canoes were free. Each
canoeist seized the stern of his own canoe, and let it drag him down the
rest of the rapid, which fortunately was a short one. While performing
this feat the knees of the canoeists were scraped over the rocks, and
they received several bruises; but they thought it was impossible to get
into their canoes in swift water, and so had no choice except to float
down hanging on to the sterns of the canoes.
Reaching the smooth water, they swam and pushed the canoes before them
toward the shore. Here they found a great bank of sawdust that had
floated down the river from the mill at Magog, and it was so soft and
elastic that they determined to sleep on it that night instead of
sleeping in their canoes, since the sky was perfectly clear and there
was no danger of rain.
The canoes were hauled out on the bank, so that the stores could be
readily taken out of them. The canvas canoe did not seem to be in the
least injured either by the rock on which she had struck or by the
collision with the other canoes. Harry's canoe had sustained a little
damage where one of the planks had been ground against the rock on which
she had hung so long, but it was not enough to cause her to leak, and
the injuries of the other canoes were confined to their varnish.
"All the trouble," remarked Harry, "came from following too close after
one another. To-morrow, if we find any more rapids, we will keep the
canoes far enough apart, so that if one canoe runs aground, the others
can turn out for her."
"We could have got into the canoes easy enough if we had only thought
so," said Tom. "If I'd stood up on the rock and held the canoe alongside
of it, I could have stepped in without any difficulty."
"Why didn't you do it, then?" asked Harry.
"Because I didn't think of it, and because all the rest of you had
started to float down after your canoes."
"I noticed one thing about a rapid which if I was Commodore it would be
my duty to impress on your faithful but ignorant minds," said Joe. "When
you see a big ripple on the water, the rock that makes it isn't under
the ripple, but is about four or five feet higher up stream."
"That's Macgregor!" cried Harry; "but I'd forgotten it. To-morrow we'll
run our rapids in real scientific style."
"Provided there are any more rapids," suggested Tom.
"What did that Sherbrooke postmaster say about the Magog rapids?"
inquired Joe.
"Said there weren't any, except one or two which we could easily run,"
replied Harry.
"Then we've probably got through with the rapids," said Charley. "I'm
rather sorry, for it's good fun running them."
Supper was now over, and the canoeists, spreading their rubber blankets
on the sawdust, prepared to "turn in." They were very tired, and, lulled
by the sound of the rapids, soon dropped asleep.
The recent rains had dampened the sawdust to the depth of about two
inches, but below this it was dry and inflammable. A fire had been made
with which to cook supper, and the dampness of the sawdust had made the
boys so confident that the fire would not spread, that they had not
taken the trouble to put it out before going to sleep.
Now it happened that the damp sawdust on which the fire had been kindled
gradually became dry, and finally took fire. It burned very slowly on
the surface, but the dry sawdust immediately below burned like tinder.
About two hours after Harry had closed his eyes he was awakened from a
dream that he had upset a burning spirit-lamp over his legs. To his
horror he saw that the whole bank of sawdust was on fire. Smoke was
everywhere creeping up through the damp top layer, and at a little
distance from the canoes the smouldering fire had burst into roaring
flames.
Harry instantly called his comrades, and starting up, they rushed to the
canoes, threw their blankets and stores into them, and prepared to
launch them. They had not a moment to spare. The flames were close to
them, and were spreading every moment, and as they shoved the canoes
toward the water their feet repeatedly sank down through the ashes below
the surface, the flames springing up as they drew them back. It did not
take many minutes to get the canoes into the water and to embark, but as
the canoeists pushed out into the river, the part of the bank where they
had been sleeping burst into flames.
A light breeze had sprung up, which was just enough to fan the fire and
to carry it into an immense pile of dry drift-wood that lay on the shore
below the sawdust bank. The boys waited in the quiet eddy near the bank
and watched the progress of the fire. It licked up the drift-wood in a
very few moments, and then, roaring with exultation over the work it had
done, it swept into the forest. In half an hour's time a forest fire was
burning which threatened to make a terrible destruction of timber, and
the heat had grown so intense that the canoeists were compelled to drop
down the stream to avoid it.
Canoeing at night is always a ticklish business, but on a swift river,
full of rapids, as is the Magog, it is exceedingly dangerous. The fire
lighted the way for the fleet for a short distance, but before a
landing-place was reached a turn on the river shut out the light, and at
the same time the noise of a rapid close at hand was heard.
The boys had no desire to entangle themselves in unknown rapids in the
dark, and paddled at once for the shore opposite to that where the fire
was raging. They found when they reached it that it was a perpendicular
bank on which it was impossible to land. They floated down a short
distance, hoping to find a landing-spot, but none could be found. Then
they attempted to cross the stream to the other shore, hoping that the
fire would not spread in that direction. To their dismay they found that
they were already almost within the clutch of the rapid. The current had
become strong and swift, and it was evident before they had got half-way
across the river that nothing but the hardest paddling could keep them
from being drawn into the rapid. It was an occasion when everybody had
to look out for himself, and depend on his own paddles for safety. The
young canoeists struck out manfully. Harry was the first to reach the
shore, where he caught hold of the root of a tree and kept his canoe
stationary. Tom followed closely behind him, and Harry told him to catch
hold of the _Sunshine_ until he could make the _Twilight_'s painter fast
to the root. Joe arrived a little later, for his canoe had run on a
rock, and for a few minutes he was in great danger of a capsize.
The three canoeists succeeded in tying up to the bank, where they
expected every moment to be joined by Charley. The minutes passed on,
but Charley did not appear. His comrades shouted for him, but there was
no answer. Indeed, the rapid made such a noise, now that they were close
upon it, that they could not have heard Charley's voice had he been a
few yards from them.
The fear that an accident had happened to Charley made the other boys
very uneasy. Joe cast his canoe loose, and paddled out into the river,
and nearly across it, looking for some signs of the _Midnight_ and her
owner; but he came back unsuccessful, after having narrowly escaped
being carried down the rapid. There could no longer be any doubt that
the current had swept the _Midnight_ away, and that Charley had been
compelled to make the hazardous and almost hopeless attempt of running
the rapid in the dark.
As soon as Joe returned, Harry said that he would paddle out into the
middle of the river, where Charley was last seen, and would let his
canoe drift down the rapid, but Tom and Joe insisted that he should do
no such thing. Said Joe: "Either Charley is drowned or he isn't. If he
isn't drowned, he is somewhere at the foot of the rapid, where we'll
find him as soon as it gets light. If he is drowned, it won't do him any
good for another of us to get drowned."
"Joe is right," said Tom. "We must stay here until daylight."
"And meanwhile Charley may be drowned!" exclaimed Harry.
"I don't believe he is," replied Tom. "He's the best canoeist of any of
us, and he is too good a sailor to get frightened. Then he is very
cautious, and I'll bet that the first thing he did when he found himself
in the rapid was to buckle his life-belt round him."
"If he did that it wouldn't hurt him if he were capsized."
"Not if the rapid is like those we've run, and the chances are that it
is. I feel sure that Charley has got through it all right, and without
losing his canoe. We'll find him waiting for us in the morning."
What Tom said seemed so reasonable that Harry gave up his wild idea of
running the rapid, and agreed to wait until daylight. It was already
nearly one o'clock, and at that time of year the day began to dawn by
half past three. There was no opportunity for the boys to sleep, but
they occasionally nodded as they sat in their canoes. About two o'clock
Harry poked Tom with his paddle, and in a low voice called his attention
to the crackling of the twigs in the woods a short distance from the
bank. Something was evidently making its way through the forest, and
coming nearer every minute to the canoes. The boys grasped their
pistols, and anxiously waited. They remembered that there were bears in
the woods, and they fully believed that one was on its way down to the
water. "Don't fire," whispered Harry, "till I give the word;" but while
he was speaking a dark form parted the underbrush on the bank above
them, and came out into full view.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]