“We are the victims of treachery, George,” said Bob, as soon as he could speak. “Somebody removed this leather, sawed the oar half in two, and then put the leather back again, just as it was before. Give me your oar. If I can keep her broadside to the stream, perhaps the current will throw us against the bank.”
He did not speak nor act like a boy who stood in momentary fear of a violent death. His face was very pale, but his voice and his hands were steady, and his words were uttered with the greatest calmness and deliberation. He was as cool, apparently, as he was while scudding before the gale in Dick Langdon’s water-logged canoe.
George, on the contrary, was almost paralyzed with terror. His hands trembled violently, and while he was trying to unship his oar, in order to pass it back to his companion, it slipped from his grasp and fell into the water, and although they both made such frantic efforts to recover it that they came within a hair’s breadth of capsizing the heavily-loaded skiff, it floated quickly out of their reach, carrying with it the last particle of their courage and all their hopes of escape.
Being left at the mercy of the current, the skiff gradually veered around, until her bow pointed down stream, and once more started with terrific speed toward the yawning mouth of the canyon.
“It’s all up with us, George,” said Bob, still speaking with wonderful calmness. “No power on earth can save us now from going into that canyon. What are you going to do?” he added, as George suddenly arose to his feet and began pulling off his coat.
“I am not going under without making the best fight I can,” replied George, in desperation. “I am going to see if I can tow the boat to the bank.”
“Sit down!” said Bob, earnestly, at the same time seizing his friend, and pulling him back into his seat. “Are you tired of life? You couldn’t stem this current for an instant. It will be time enough for us to take to the water when the boat is smashed on the rocks in the canyon.”
The boys were so completely stunned by their fearful peril, that they had been blind and deaf to everything else; but now they turned their eyes toward the shore, and saw that there was a terrible commotion there.
When Ike saw the oar break in Bob’s hands, he had raised his voice in frantic appeals for help, and soon succeeded in arousing all the inmates of the ranch.
There were a dozen or more of them, all stalwart, courageous men, who would have risked their lives any day to save Bob Howard.