The din that filled the ears of Little Rifle, as he stood on a flat, projecting slab of rock, where his clothing was speedily saturated, was enough to drive an ordinary person frantic, although it scarcely affected one who had spent such a portion of his life in the wilderness as had he.
But here he might have shouted his voice away, and not the slightest sound would have been heard even by himself. He could do nothing but stand and watch and wait, with that freezing terror all through his nerves that made him feel as if he must forever remain rooted to the spot.
“But where is the canoe?” he thought, when it seemed to him that he had been waiting an interminable period, while, from the very nature of the case, he had been there only a few seconds. “Could it have gone over while I was making my way to the spot? No, that can not be, for I almost flew. Oh! is there no hand to save him?”
At that instant Little Rifle caught sight of the canoe, as it glided swiftly out to view, seeming to poise itself for a moment in mid-air, like an eagle balancing himself for his earthward sweep, and then the boat, with its brave occupant, shot downward, with a velocity that seemed almost to baffle the eye.
It appeared as if the water as it swept over the ledge of rocks was of unusual density, for the canoe rested on the surface, like a feather, as though it had lost all weight.
Little Rifle saw the prow, following the curve of the river, turn downward, so that it stood perfectly perpendicular, the white-faced but resolute lad who occupied it grasping the sides with his hands so as to maintain his place.
In this way it made the descent, for, perhaps, fifty feet, when the stern, probably retaining the momentum longer than the lighter bow, advanced so much further that the canoe turned a complete sommersault, both it and the boy shooting from view in the roaring, plunging and churning hell of waters at the bottom of the falls.
“Lost! lost! gone to his last account!” gasped Little Rifle, recovering from the paralysis in which he stood up to this instant. “He showed that he was a brave lad, and he deserved a better fate— There! can it be?”
Although, as we have shown, the efforts of the poor boy to work his canoe in to shore and out of the frightful current failed, yet it resulted, despite the appearance to the contrary, in getting quite a distance toward the bank whereon Little Rifle stood, and he noted the fact, with some surprise, as it came over the falls.
As he stood on the wet rock, looking at the foaming abyss before him, something dark shot up to view almost at his feet. Looking downward, he had just time to see that it was a part of the canoe—about a half—when it drove out of sight again, in the resistless grasp of the current.