It was perhaps an hour before the three young adventurers were able to climb the rugged slope which lay before them, and finally to descend a bad rock wall which allowed them access to the long point which Uncle Dick had pointed out to them, far below and at one side of the dreaded Priest Rapids. Here they built their little fire of driftwood, as they had been instructed; and, climbing up on another pile of driftwood which was massed on the beach, they began eagerly to look up-stream.
“The worst waves are over on the other side,” said Rob, after a time. “Look, I can see them now—they look mighty little—that’s the boats angling across from where we left them! It’ll soon be over now, one way or the other.”
They all stood looking anxiously. “They’re out of sight!” exclaimed Rob. And so, indeed, they were.
“That’s only the dip they’ve taken,” said Rob, after a time. “I see them coming now. Look! Look at them come! I believe they’re through.”
They stood looking for a little time, and then all took off their hats and waved them with a yell. They could see the boats now plunging on down, rising and falling, but growing larger and blacker every instant. At last they could see them outlined against the distant white, rolling waves, and knew that they were through the end of the chute and practically safe.
In a few moments more the two boats came on, racing by their point, all the men so busy that they had not time to catch the excited greetings which the boys shouted to them. But once around the point the boats swung in sharply, and soon, bow up-stream, made a landing but a few hundred yards below where they stood. Soon they were all united once more, shaking hands warmly with one another.
“That’s great!” said Uncle Dick. “I’ll warrant there was one swell there over fifteen feet high—maybe twenty, for all we could tell. I know it reared up clear above us, so that you had to lean your head to see the top of it. If we’d hit it would have been all over with us.”
“She’s bad tam, young men,” said Moise. “From where we see him she don’t look so bad, but once you get in there—poom! Well, anyway, here we are. That’s more better’n getting drowned, and more better’n walk, too.” And Moise, the light-hearted, used to taking chances, dismissed the danger once it was past.
“Well, that’s what I call good planning and good work,” said Rob, quietly, after a while. “To find the best thing to do and then to do it—that seems to be the way for an engineer to work, isn’t it, Uncle Dick?”
“Yes, it is, and all’s well that ends well,” commented the other. “And mighty glad I am to think that we are safe together again, and that you don’t have to try to make your way alone and on foot from this part of the country. I wasn’t happy at all when I thought of that.”