She ran the motor boat as close as she could to the canoe. The swell of water threatened to upset the smaller craft. Gale shut the motor off. The boat was immediately swept into the current. Grasping a long, heavy boat hook which she found lying on the deck, Gale stepped onto the closed cabinet-like doors which sheltered the engine.
“Go back—you’ll be killed!” the other figure implored.
Gale sent the woman a reassuring smile. She had done such crazy stunts on Bruce Latimer’s boat back in Marchton. Now she felt no fear at all for herself, only a fear that she might not be able to push the tree branch far enough away to loosen the canoe. She tied one end of a coil of rope to the anchor bolt on the motor boat and threw it toward the canoe. It fell directly across the small craft. The canoeist grasped it and made it secure.
Cautiously Gale worked herself farther out to the bow of the boat. She had only a few seconds now in which to loosen the tree branch and restart the motor to save them both. At the first thrust of the boat hook Gale nearly toppled herself into the water. She heard a muffled cry from the woman in the canoe. She regained her posture. She could never do it standing upright. Therefore, she lay down flat on her stomach on the boat. That gave her a freer use of her right arm and less chance of losing her balance. A gigantic push and the branch swept away from the canoe and onward to the destruction of the falls.
Gale lost no time in making her way back to start the motor. Luckily it started with the first try and the motor boat pulled clear of the swirling waters, dragging behind it the canoe.
Once on shore Gale tied the motor boat securely to its former position and helped the slender figure from the canoe. The canoeist was a woman older than Gale, but Gale felt immediately that they could be firm friends. She liked the other’s frank smile and clear gray eyes.
“You are a brave girl!” the woman said when she was safe and her first words of thanks were over. “I might be over the falls now if it were not for you,” she shuddered.
Gale smiled. “It was a lucky thing someone was here. What happened? Did you go out without any oars?”
“I know better than to do that,” the woman said. “I was sitting in the canoe farther up along the shore, reading. I often do that. I had no desire to go out on the lake so I left the oars on shore while the boat remained anchored. I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I knew I awoke and I was in the middle of the lake, caught in the rapids.”
Gale looked at the boat and noted the short bit of rope dangling from its stern.