Before their vision a vivid picture passed of the scene they had so recently beheld--the onrushing, white piled billows above the cataract, gathering strength for their mighty leap--the final plunge of the resistless torrent--the bank of rainbow-coloured mist hovering in space over a dark abyss--and far below and beyond the mist-bank the murky chasm, where a white seething flood was beating its wild anger out against jagged rocks in its mad endeavour to fight its way to freedom between narrow canyon walls rising in frowning cliffs on either side.
Impotent to resist the power that was drawing them down, Shad Trowbridge and Ungava Bob were certain beyond a doubt that presently they were to be hurled into this awful chasm, and that in all human probability but a few minutes more of life remained to them.
Then suddenly there flashed upon Bob's memory the recollection of an island which he had observed when walking along the river bank from the falls to the portage trail.
He remembered that this island was of curious formation, with high polished cliffs rising on its upper end and on either side, like bulwarks to guard it from the rushing tide.
At its lower end a long, low, gravelly point reached downward, like a pencil point, among the swirling eddies. The gravel which formed this point, he had remarked at the time, had been deposited by the eddies created by the meeting of the waters where they rushed together from either side below the island.
With the recollection of the island came also a realisation that here possibly lay a means of escape. A quick estimate of the distance they had already drifted below the portage trail satisfied him that they were still perhaps half a mile above the island, and probably not too far amidstream to enable them to swing in upon it before it was passed, in which case a landing might be made with comparative ease upon the gravelly point.
The canoe, as previously stated, was heading upstream, with Bob in the bow, Shad in the stern. It was necessary that they turn around and secure a view of the river in order to avoid possible reefs near the island shore, and to properly pick an available landing place.
But to attempt to turn the canoe itself in the swift current would in all probability result in fatal delay. Therefore, acting upon the moment's instinct, Bob ceased paddling, arose, and himself quickly turned, seating himself face to the stern, shouting to Shad as he did so:
"Turn! I'll steer!"
Shad had no doubt Bob had become demented, but without question obeyed the command. In this position what had previously been the stern of the canoe now became the bow, Shad Trowbridge the bowman and Ungava Bob the steersman.