The boys put in a couple of hours repairing the canoe, then they studied the river in hopes of recovering the guns. How well the river-men seemed to know it! Its every ripple and curl told them a story of the bottom and the flood.
"There must be a ledge there," said Billy, "just where we upset. If the guns went down at once they are there. If they were carried at all, the bottom is smooth to the second ledge and they are there." He pointed a hundred yards away.
So they armed themselves with grappling-poles that had nails for claws. Then we lowered Rob in the canoe into the rapid and held on while he fished above the ledge.
"I tink I feel 'em," said Rob, again and again, but could not bring them up. Then Billy tried.
"Yes, they are there." But the current was too fierce and the hook too poor; he could not hold them.
Then I said: "There is only one thing to do. A man must go in at the end of the rope; maybe he can reach down. I'll never send any man into such a place, but I'll go myself."
So I stripped, padded the track-line with a towel and put it around my waist, then plunged in. Ouch! it was cold, and going seven miles an hour. The boys lowered me to the spot where I was supposed to dive or reach down. It was only five feet deep, but, struggle as I might, I could not get even my arm down. I ducked and dived, but I was held in the surface like a pennant on an air-blast. In a few minutes the icy flood had robbed me of all sensation in my limbs, and showed how impossible was the plan, so I gave the signal to haul me in; which they did, nearly cutting my body in two with the rope. And if ever there was a grovelling fire-worshipper, it was my frozen self when I landed.
Now we tried a new scheme. A tall spruce on the shore was leaning over the place; fifty feet out, barely showing, was the rock that wrecked us. We cut the spruce so it fell with its butt on the shore, and lodged against the rock. On this, now, Rob and Billy walked out and took turns grappling. Luck was with Rob. In a few minutes he triumphantly hauled up the rifle and a little later the shotgun, none the worse.
Now, we had saved everything except the surplus provisions and my little camera, trifling matters, indeed; so it was with feelings of triumph that we went on south that day.
In the afternoon, as we were tracking up the last part of the Boiler Rapid, Billy at the bow, Rob on the shore, the line broke, and we were only saved from another dreadful disaster by Billy's nerve and quickness; for he fearlessly leaped overboard, had the luck to find bottom, and held the canoe's head with all his strength. The rope was mended and a safe way was found. That time I realized the force of an Indian reply to a trader who sought to sell him a cheap rope. "In the midst of a rapid one does not count the cost of the line."