The others were growling drowsily as they rose to their feet, and I saw that Ormond’s gaze was fixed on me meaningly.
“You’ll take me over now won’t you, Lorimer?” he said as I bent over him. “I feel that each hour is precious, and I’m longing above all things to see Miss Carrington before I go. It is for her own sake partly.”
I had forgotten our rivalry, and my voice was thick as I promised, while Ormond sighed before he answered faintly:
“It might have been different, Lorimer. It’s a pity we didn’t know each other better three years ago.”
CHAPTER XXV
ORMOND’S LAST JOURNEY
“Launch her down handy. Bring the sick man along!” called some one outside; and when we carried Ormond out I saw the others running a big Siwash canoe down over the shingle, and the dark pines rising spires of solid blackness against the coming day. It was bitterly cold, and white mist hung about them, while huge masses of rock rose through the smoke of the river, whose clamor filled all the hollow. None of us quite liked the task before us, for man’s vigor is never at its highest in the chilly dawn; but I remembered Ormond’s eagerness to continue the journey. So we laid him gently on our blankets in the waist, and thrust out the long and beautifully modeled craft, which was of the type that the coastwise Siwash use when hunting the fur seals. I knelt grasping the forward paddle until Hector, who held the steering blade, said: “If ye’ll follow my bidding I’ll land ye safe across. Together! Lift her all!”
The light shell surged forward to the sturdy stroke, for several of those behind me were masters of the paddle, and as I plied my blade I felt with a thrill that it was good to fight the might of the river in such a company. Snowy wreaths boiled high about the shearing prow, I could hear the others catch their breath with a hiss, and once more after a heavy thud the cedar floor seemed to raise itself beneath me and leap to the impulse, while, with a hardening of every muscle, I swept the leaf-shaped blade outward ready for the 281 dip. There was spray in my eyes, and bearing down on us through it a boulder, with dim trunks opening and closing beyond; then I saw only the bird’s head on the prow, for some one cried behind that my stroke was slow, and by the rush of foam and the shock of thudding blow I knew that the others’ blades were whirling like flails.