Johnny Longbow

Mystery Stories for Boys
By ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago New York
Printed in the United States of America
Copyright, 1928 by The Reilly & Lee Co. All Rights Reserved
Johnny Thompson caught his breath as his feet shot from beneath him and he plunged into a rushing torrent of icy water. Thoughts flashed across his mind, mental pictures of homes and firesides. Echoes of laughter sounded in his ears.
Yet in this wilderness there was no laughter save the boisterous roar of an Arctic stream. There were no homes save those of the muskrat, the beaver and the white owl. The nearest cabin was fifty miles or more back. An all but impassable forest of scrub spruce, fir and pine lay between. There was time for but a flash back before Johnny found himself fighting for his life against the torrent that was dragging him over rocks and sunken logs, splashing, ducking, pulling at him and threatening every moment to make an end of him.
But Johnny Thompson was not one to be beaten at once by this rushing torrent of northern Canada. Swimming strongly, warding off overhanging branches here, dodging great protruding boulders there, he still watched for a gently shelving bank that might offer him so much as a moment’s rest. Since no such haven offered itself at once, he shot the rapids like a salmon.
A long, slender oiled canvas sack hung at his back. Twice this threatened to prove his undoing. It caught upon a tough willow branch and dragged him beneath the surface. Hardly had he freed himself than this same sack that apparently contained some stiff and stubborn affair of wood or steel caught in a rocky crevice to throw him high and wide. This involuntary pole vault left him with breath quite crushed out, but still struggling.
Suddenly, straight ahead, he caught sight of that which must prove his salvation or his undoing. Undermined by the torrent a green spruce tree lay squarely across his path.
Ten seconds to wonder. Would he be caught in the branches and drowned, or would he mount those same branches to freedom?