Tale XXIII: A Greenhorn in a Rapid
Every spring, a lot of greenhorns go North, either in hope of making their living, or in a spirit of adventure. A few struggle through and succeed. A lot meet with accidents. All of them run appalling risks.
Some years ago—before the War—there was a mild stampede on the Chamuchuan River in the Province of Quebec. Gold was reported to have been found. As soon as the ice had gone, several hundred men started North, plunging into the wilderness in quest of fortune.
A few weeks later we were poling up that same river on our way to Mistassini Lake. We reached a long straight rapid and were unloading our canoe before portaging. One of the Indians noticed, two miles away at the head of the rapid, right in the middle of the foaming river, a dark speck on a flat rock. One man said it was a bear because it moved.
What a black bear could be doing in such a spot was a problem in itself, but we let it go at that and started packing our loads. I happened to be the first one over the portage. Throwing down my load, I looked instinctively at the river. There was a man squatting dismally on a small flat rock right in the middle of the current, fifty yards or so below where the portage stopped and the rapid began.
So that was the black bear seen an hour ago! When the stranger saw us, he scrambled to his feet and started gesticulating wildly. We could not understand how he got there. He had no canoe. The rock was about three foot square. On both sides of it the river rushed down in a blind torrent of foam.
We considered a way to rescue him. The idea of running down in a canoe was out of the question. Even if we succeeded in getting him on board—we would have to go on and there was a ten foot fall a few hundred yards further down which meant immediate disaster.
We hit on the following plan. We found a good sized log, tied to it all the ropes we had in one single line, paddled as far down near the head of the rapid as we dared, anchored our canoe with a huge stone taken from shore and then paid out the rope, the log floating ahead of it towards the man on the rock.
We managed to let the log pass more or less alongside the stranger! But for a long time the man appeared frightened. Each time he missed his chance of catching hold of the log. And we had to hand it up again thirty yards or so to be able to give it the proper direction so that it would pass as near as possible to the rock.
Finally, the stranger decided to take a chance. He waved at us as if he were taking a last farewell, then jumped boldly—head first and arm extended—straight for that log. There was quite a splash and for a second we could not see whether he had succeeded in getting hold of the stump. Our rope was tight. We had reached the end of it.
We hauled in. In a few minutes we knew we had our man at the end of our line. We got occasional glimpses of him, although he was all the time half way under water. He was lying on the log—clasping it with both arms—straddling it with both legs. Little by little we got him alongside. He was nearly drowned and quite speechless. With an effort we got him on board. Then letting the log go after cutting the rope—we paddled ashore.
An hour later our new acquaintance was able to talk and tell us his story. He was a student and had gone with a party to the upper end of the river in search of gold. Disgusted with the life, homesick, weak from lack of food and from mosquito bites, he had decided to run away and reach the line. Stealing a canoe, he had started alone on his journey.
He had never been in the woods before. When he reached the rapid he missed the portage. In a second he found himself helpless in the first whirlpool. By sheer luck his canoe was thrown against that lonely flat rock. When it hit, he let his paddle go and jumped, landing safely on the big stone. The canoe, of course, disappeared in the swirl.
He had been there—squatting helplessly right in the middle of that rapid—for thirty-six hours when we happened to pass that way and rescue him.
