"Upstream! Upstream! Turn about!" shouted Bob.
In the excitement and confusion that followed the first few moments after the attack, much valuable time had been lost in ineffectual manoeuvres, and when the canoe was finally turned about they were far out into the stream, and it was found that the insidious current had caught them. Bob was the first to recognise the danger, and in a sharp, tense voice he commanded:
"Quick! Work for your life! If th' rapid gets us, 'twill carry us over th' falls!"
Then they paddled--paddled as none had ever paddled before. But already the powerful current had them in its grip. Slowly--slowly--but with increasing speed they were drifting toward the awful cataract.
They would have braved the Indians now, and attempted a landing, but from a point directly below the portage trail, and extending to the white water of the heavy rapids the river bank rose in a perpendicular rampart of smooth-scoured rock, a full ten feet in height, offering no possible foothold.
For a little while they hoped, as they worked like madmen. Then the full import of their position dawned upon them--that they were hopelessly drifting toward the brink of the awful cataract.
Beads of cold perspiration broke out upon their foreheads. A sickening numbness came into their hearts, and as in a dream they heard the derisive, exultant yells of the savages upon the shore.
AFTER THE INDIAN ATTACK
Below them rose the appalling roar of the hungry rapids and the dull, thunderous, monotonous undertone of the falls themselves.