It had all happened in a moment. Doubtless some slight movement on the girl’s part had set the light Indian craft afloat, and for another second or two I stared aghast upon a scene that is indelibly impressed on my memory. There was Ormond scrambling madly among the boulders, tearing off his jacket as he ran, Colonel Carrington struggling with a startled horse, and his sister standing rigid and still, apparently horror-stricken, against the background of somber pines. Then forest and hillside melted away, and while my blood grew chill I saw only a slender white-robed figure in the stern of the canoe, which was sliding fast toward the head of the tossing rapid that raced in a mad seething into the cañon.
Then I smote the horse, gripped the rein, and we were off at a flying gallop down the declivity. A branch lashed my forehead, sweeping my hat away; for an instant something warm dimmed my vision, and as I raised one hand to dash it away a cry that had a note of agony in it came ringing down the valley.
“Make for the eddy, Grace! For heaven’s sake, paddle!”
How Cæsar kept his footing I do not know. The gravel was rattling behind us, the trunks reeled by, and the rushing water seemed flying upward toward me. Even now I do not think I had any definite plan, and it was only blind instinct that prompted me to head down-stream diagonally to cut off the approaching canoe; but I answered the Colonel’s shout with an excited cry, and drove the horse headlong at a shelf of rock. I felt his hoofs slipping on 169 its mossy covering, there was a strident clang of iron on stone, and then with a sudden splash we were in the torrent together. Cæsar must have felt the bottom beneath him a moment or two, for I had time to free my feet from the stirrups before he was swimming gallantly; but one cannot take a horse on board a birch-bark canoe, and the light shell shot down the green and white-streaked rush toward me even as I flung myself out of the saddle. And, staring forward with drawn-back lips and eyes wide open, I could see the white face in the stern.
Thanking Providence that I could swim well, I swung my left arm forward with hollowed palm, and shot away from the beast with head half-buried under the side-stroke’s impetus, making a fierce effort to gain the center of the flow in time. Something long and dark swept past me. With an inarticulate gasp of triumph I seized it, managed to fall in head foremost over the stem, which in a tender craft of that beam is a difficult thing to do, and then, snatching the second paddle, whirled it madly. I felt the stout redwood bend at every stroke, my lungs seemed bursting, and there was a mist before my eyes, but it was borne in on me that I had come too late, and that already no earthly power could snatch us from the cañon.
Hemlock and boulder, stream-hammered reef and pine, flitted by, closing in on one another along the half-seen shore. The river frothed white about us in steep boiling ridges as it raced down the incline, and nearer and nearer ahead tossed the ghostly spray cloud that veiled the mouth of the chasm. As we lurched broadside to the rapid each steeper liquid upheaval broke into the canoe; for every foot I won shoreward the stream swept us sideways two; and when, grasping the pole, I thrust against a submerged boulder with all my strength, the treacherous redwood snapped in half. Then there was a bewildering roar, a blinding 170 shower of spray, and we were out upon the short slide of glassy green water which divided the tail of the rapid from the mouth of the cañon. As I flung away the broken pole and groped for the paddle I saw with eyes that were clouded by blood and sweat Grace raise her hand as though in a last farewell, and then as she faced round once more our glances met. She said no word. I could not have heard if she had, for all sound was swallowed up in one great pulsating diapason; but she afterward said that she felt impelled to look at me, and knew that I would turn my head. And so for an instant, there where the barriers of caste and wealth had melted away before the presence of death, our two souls met in a bond that should never be broken.
Now there are occasions when even the weakest seem endowed with a special strength, while a look of blind confidence from the woman he loves is capable of transforming almost any man, and I knew in the exaltation of that moment, for my own sake, I had no fear of death. If I could not save her, I felt it would be a good end to go down into the green depths attempting it.
Then the canoe lurched forward half its length clear of the water, a white haze eddied about us, the sunlight went out, and we were in the cañon, shooting down the mad rush of a rapid toward eternity. I plied the paddle my hardest to keep the frail craft head on, that she might not roll over by sheering athwart the stream, not because I had any hope of escape, but that it seemed better to go under fighting. The work was severe enough, as, not having learned the back-feather under water, I must dip the blade on either side alternately, while each time that I dare turn my eyes backward a moment the sight of Grace kneeling with set white face in the stern further strengthened me. The pace grew a little easier as we drew out into a somewhat slacker 171 flow, and I made shift with an empty fruit-can to free the craft of water, until Grace spoke, and her words reached me brokenly through the deeper growling of the river:
“Do you think there is any chance of safety?”
“Yes,” I answered stoutly, though it is probable my voice belied me. It was so strained I could hardly recognize it. “The canoe may keep afloat until we reach the other end, or perhaps we can find a bar to land on and climb up somewhere.” Then I felt glad that my shoulders were turned toward her as she said: