"This heap bad," said Harry as they started out, "but I in plenty worse. Keep eyes open much."
"Right you are, Harry," sung out Roger cheerily, and a moment later the canoe shot into the mouth of the canyon, the other members of the party watching them with some anxiety, as, aside from the question of danger, the loss of one of the boats would mean a great deal of extra work on the trip. As the canoe entered the canyon Roger could feel the whole frame of his companion quiver with the intensity of attention, and he heeded every move of the canoe so closely that he felt as though he knew before every movement of the stern paddle just in what direction it would be, and of what weight.
The boy had learned well the lesson of following orders, and his confidence in his companion was so absolute that he was untroubled in mind, which went far to make him alert and able. Suddenly, the boat gave a little jump and the current leaped to double its speed, and for two hundred feet they rushed down a smooth plane of dark water with a seethe of foam awaiting them at the bottom. Just as they reached it, Harry shouted:
"Now!" and bore outward with all his strength.
"Sure!" came Roger's ready answer, as he followed the action almost simultaneously, but his confidence received a sudden check when they plunged into blinding foam which drove across the boat so that the Indian could hardly discern the lad kneeling in the bow. Angry little cross-waves leaped at them, naked scarps of rocks thrust bared fangs at them, but threading, this way and that, a channel of almost unbelievable intricacy and appalling narrowness, the little boat went through.
At the base of the second of these, in a moment of comparatively still water, the Indian called:
"Plenty heap good paddle," he said, "but too much beefsteak. More easy stroke." He broke off suddenly, "Ah!"
The warning was needed, for the vicious spite of this rapid began at its very mouth, and once the boy heard Harry grunt as he put his whole strength into a double stroke which, Roger could have sworn, made the frame of the canoe bend and wriggle like a snake. There followed then a greater rapidity of current again, and the walls of the gorge closed in until it seemed to the boy that if they got any nearer the boat would be shooting through a tunnel, and the prospect of a subterranean tunnel was not pleasant.
Just at the narrowest part, when it was difficult sometimes to avoid the paddles striking the rock on the side, the torrent boiling through and both men backing water, the canyon took a sharp turn to the right. Harry threw her head round, but not far enough, for there, not fifteen feet away from the angle of the bend, a black rock rose sheer from the water, with a spur sticking out, exactly like the spur of a fighting cock. The boat could not clear, and though Roger got the bow by, the current crushed the side of the canoe against the rock, and with a cry the Indian leaped for the spur.
"Jump!" he yelled to Roger.