Great trees had been gashed and splintered by the resistless rush of huge, grinding cakes borne along and piled one upon the other by the raging, snow-fed river. Others had been uprooted and carried down with the flood, or piled in a tangled jam along the shore. In some places the steep banks themselves had been undermined, until large portions had crumbled and fallen into the water, taking trees and rocks with them. It was the annual toll of the river, exacted and collected by its freshet-swollen waters each spring.
“She’s still quite high. Guess we’ll go some when we hit the rapids,” he laughed.
“Are we really going through the rapids?” inquired George, eagerly.
“Yes, we have two sets to run,” Ben replied.
The boys did a double shuffle in their delight. They had read thrilling tales of shooting rapids. Now they were to shoot rapids themselves.
Ben carried the canoe some distance along the bank and launched it in a quiet backwater. The boys brought the packs, and the guide stowed them skilfully away in the canoe. He made sure that the light craft would be evenly balanced. He shifted the bags several times, until the canoe floated on a proper keel.
Then he ordered the lads to take their places. Seating himself in the stern, he pushed from the shore, with a long, iron-shod pike-pole, which he used in the rapids and in pushing up-stream against the current. Once in the stream, the canoe shot forward with the current, and the eventful journey was begun.
They were carried along so swiftly that Ben needed to do little more than to steer. In the rapids waves broke along the sides of the fragile bark, and then swept on, hissing, in a swirl of amber foam along the stern. George declared it was like going to sea in a peanut-shell. The canoe raced along, steady as a rock, thanks to Ben’s care in loading it.
It was past noon when they entered a quieter stretch of water and Ben turned the bow of his craft toward shore. Beaching the canoe, they pulled it up and took out what they needed for luncheon.
Ben started a fire, and when it was crackling merrily he told his young companions to joint their fish-rods. When they had done this, he searched carefully through their stock of artificial flies and chose those he thought would be most alluring. Then he bade them follow up a little brook which flowed down through the woods and emptied into the river near-by. He told them to go along this brook until they came to a large, foam-covered pool at the base of a falls, and to fish this pool thoroughly. Then, wishing the lads luck, he dismissed them and promised to have dinner ready when they returned.