They had only a few minutes to wait.
Ike and Wah Shin sent up a cry of horror as, with the roar of an angry monster, the current swept the raft into the stream.
With the grim stoicism of his race, Ulna looked about him without seeming to be at all disturbed by the awful situation.
Sam's object was to get across to the other side of the cañon and effect a landing with his party, for he never for an instant lost sight of the fact that his father's freedom if not his life depended on his reaching Hurley's Gulch at once with the papers in the Edwards case.
But alas for all the schemes planned by love and executed by courage! What was man's strength and daring to the weight of the piled-up, flying waters?
The instant the raft swung away from the plateau Sam saw that his pole was of no use, for the river bottom was fully one hundred feet below the surface.
He tried to use the pole as a paddle, but his efforts had no effect on the course of the raft.
It was hurled like a plaything by some mighty, unseen power, into the center of the flood; then, with the speed of a racer urged on by whip and spur, the frail ark went flying down the cañon.
For the life of him Sam could not utter a word. His face was blanched, but it was not with fear, though death seemed now inevitable.
"What will become of poor father!" This is what poor Sam would have cried out if he could have given expression to the one thought that filled his brain and the one feeling that stirred his heart.