With Cochrane the Dauntless

by G. A. Henty

“Not so much danger as there would be of the canoe upsetting if I were alone in it, for I should be powerless even to keep her straight, and she would go broadside on to a rock and be dashed to pieces.”

“The señor is right, Hurka,” Pita said gravely; “we will do as he wishes. But the ropes must be long, so that if we are flung off the raft there will be no sudden pull on the canoe. Should there be such a misfortune I will shout to you, and we will then swim towards the boat, taking up the ropes as we go, but putting no strain upon them; when we reach the boat, one will aid the señor to steady it while the other climbs in; after that it will be easier to get the second on board.”

“You still think that it is better to make a passage than to carry the whole kit and the canoe over?”

“It would take many weeks, señor. Besides, though I have never been here before, I have heard that the difficulties are so great that the river Indians never attempt to carry even a light canoe over. I am at your service, señor, and am willing to try if you give the order, but I have been told by Indians that when the river is, as now, in flood, the danger is by no means great. Of course, we shall keep out of the full strength of the current.”

Accordingly they started the next morning, and an hour after setting out were in the sweep of the rapids. The passage was an intensely exciting one. The Indians stood, paddle in hand, one at each corner of the front of the raft; their poles lay ready to snatch up in case any rock was approached, but the paddles were needed to keep the raft from being dragged out into the full force of the current. Here the water rose in steep ridges, and had the raft got among these it would have been torn to pieces almost instantly. At the same time it was desirable not to go too near the shore, as the risk from submerged rocks would be greater there. But Stephen saw that unless rocks came absolutely above the surface they would be swept over them, as the raft drew but two or three inches of water. Except in the middle, the stream rushed along with a surface broken only by tiny eddies. It was only by seeing how they flew past the banks that any idea could be formed of the speed at which they were travelling.

In eight hours it was over. Several times the paddlers had to exert themselves to the utmost to avoid spots where great swells of water showed that there were rocks below the surface, but on no occasion did the Indians have to use their poles. The bed of the river widened sharply at the foot of the rapids, and just as Stephen congratulated himself that the passage had been safely made, he saw by an increase in the labour of the Indians that something was wrong. Standing up in the canoe [pg 322]he perceived that they had been shot out of the current into the back-water formed by the sudden widening of the stream, and that in this back-water was a very strong eddy sweeping round and round in a circle. This was about a hundred yards in diameter, with a depression in the centre, and round this the raft was carried at a rate that defied the efforts of the two paddlers to check.

At one moment they were within twenty yards of a flat forest-covered shore, and the next were near the edge of the torrent pouring down the rapids. In vain the paddlers tried to edge the raft out little by little from the whirlpool. Not only was the current too strong for them, but its surface was dotted with floating logs and branches of trees that, like themselves, coursed round and round. As long as all were travelling at the same rate and in the same direction the danger of a collision was comparatively slight, but more than once when the rowers succeeded in gaining a short distance towards the outside edge of the whirlpool, they were forced to desist suddenly and paddle straight with the current, to avoid a great log bearing down upon them.

Pita took a lariat from the canoe and prepared to throw it, so as to catch one of the branches when they neared the shore. He tried several times, but the distance was too great; and indeed it was necessary to catch the trees at some little distance before reaching the point opposite to them, in order to pull diagonally across the current, for a jerk when the canoe was at right angles would have torn the raft to pieces.

“Could we launch the canoe and paddle out of the whirlpool in that?” Stephen said.

“We might do that,” Hurka replied, “but a touch from any of these logs would sink her in a moment; and besides, we should be sorry to lose the raft, for we have no skins to make floats, and the rushes of which we constructed it only grow in [pg 323]the quiet waters of the upper river. We might take to the canoe as a last resource, but we should be very loth to do it.”