Despite Avery’s knowledge of the surrounding country and his not inconsiderable woodcraft, they failed to get a shot at a moose, although they saw several on the distant borders of the pond. Two evenings he had “called,” but without success. Swickey’s disappointment was more than offset by the companionship of David. Gradually something of their old familiar friendship, with its pleasant banter, was established again. On the last morning of the hunt she regretted more the necessity for their return than the fact that they were to return empty-handed.
As they carried round the falls on their way down Squawpan stream, she asked her father if they could not run the “rips” below.
“Ya-as, you kin run ’em all right, but not with three of us in the boat. If you and Dave’d like to drop down through, I’ll take the trail. Mebby I might run into a moose at thet. If you hear me shoot, jest pull in at the first eddy and wait.”
She questioned David with wide, bright eyes.
“I’ll go, if you’ll take the risk, Swickey.”
“They ain’t nothin’ to do except keep clus to the left bank,” said Avery, turning toward the woods. “Let the rocks stay whar they be and they won’t bother ye none. They’s only a short piece of white water, and then another, and then it’s jest as quiet as a Sunday a’ternoon in a muskeg.”
As Swickey stepped into the canoe, Smoke followed nimbly over the gunwale, and curled at her feet. She threw her mackinaw over him, for the afternoon was none too warm, and he would have to be still for an hour or more in the cramped quarters of the bow.
They swung from the eddy below the falls and shot into the backwash of the river as it swept converging toward the first grim rocks that shouldered the current to a rippling wedge of white. They dashed through, Swickey’s paddle flashing as she fended off, now to the left, now to the right, and before they realized it they were in the listless drift of the somnolent dead waters below.
“That was great!” shouted David. “Is there any more of it?”
“Yes, in a minute or two,” replied Swickey.