The canoe went swiftly on while Bill, seated on the pack, built a small coffer-dam around himself with blankets and bailed out the water with a quart cup. It rose steadily in spite of his best efforts and began to ooze over the dam. It seemed only a matter of minutes before the canoe would sink. They were making pretty good time, taking chances on not striking any more stubs and rapidly shortening the distance to shore.
At the end of ten minutes the canoe was pretty low in the water. “I can’t make it, fellows,” Bill panted. “Get Mert to tow us and all three of us can keep it down easily.”
They cast a line to the nearest canoe, Merton’s, and all three plied the bailing cups. Slowly the water began to go down and the canoe floated higher.
“I’ll try paddling again,” Morris said. “You and Steve can keep her down, I guess.”
This arrangement greatly increased the speed and the two bailers managed to keep the water down. At last they scraped on the solid ground.
“There,” Bill said as they scrambled ashore and pulled up the disabled canoe, “I feel better now. I kept thinking how unpleasant it would be if I had to swim ashore with one of those sharp stubs puncturing my stomach the way it did that canoe. I had a hunch that it would do it, too.”
The other canoes came safely through and everyone gathered around to see the damage. It proved to be an easy hole to patch and the little procession was soon on its way down the river.
“I suppose it was a foolish thing to do,” Merton said, “but I’m glad we did it. That wind is just ripping again and there is no telling when we should have gotten across.”
The rest of the river was easy traveling and the rapid current helped them along wonderfully. There were a few rapids which they shot successfully, a few dams where they had to portage and one or two places where the logs were so thick that they had trouble in picking their way through them, but most of the time it was plain sailing.
Among the most interesting sights along the river to them was the big paper mill at Little Falls. They knew that they would have the process to study in their course in by-products the next semester, and took the opportunity to see it first hand. Merton interviewed the manager and found him very ready to show them through the whole factory. They found that he had made a canoe trip part way down the river himself at one time, and was very much interested in their adventures.