And then the dugout seemed to drop from under him, and immediately afterward precipitated itself with a crash against a wall of water. A wave leaped aboard, drenching Ralph to the waist. He thought it was all over, and suddenly ceased to trouble. Charley yelled with pure excitement; the dugout gave a series of mad leaps and plunges, flinging Ralph from side to side like a sack of meal, and suddenly they floated in smooth water again. An uncanny stillness descended on them. A long breath escaped between Ralph's teeth.
There followed what seemed like the greater part of a day to Ralph, with scarcely anything to register the passing of the heavy time. It was perhaps four hours. The sunshine grew warm in his face, and he smelled the pines on shore. High overhead he heard the eagles screaming. Charley complained—of hunger, Ralph guessed, and Nahnya laconically silenced him. At intervals a new sound gave Ralph food for thought. This was the loud, brawling voice of a stream, now on one side, now on the other.
"The whole character of the country must have changed," he thought. "We must be passing between steep hills or mountains for the streams to come tumbling down like that."
The long wait for something to happen was ended by the voice of another great rapid ahead. Ralph's heart began to beat. "Must I go through with that again?" he thought.
But while he was steeling himself for the ordeal, the nose of the dugout grounded, and Charley, springing out, pulled her up on shore.
Ralph was lifted out and laid on a flat rock. There was a long wait. A very real hunger began to assail him. One of the brawling streams came down nearby. From the sounds that reached his ears, Ralph pictured the dugout being dragged across the rock on rollers, and hidden under bushes. Evidently their journey by water was at an end. Nahnya and Charley sat down near him, seemingly to make something. Finally Ralph was lifted up and laid down again, and then, much to his surprise, hoisted on a litter and borne away.
A long journey over rough ground followed, and all uphill, Ralph judged. They never passed out of hearing of the voice of the small stream. They stopped often to rest. Even so, it was wonderful to Ralph how easily they went. He was no light-weight. Once or twice Charley grumbled at taking up the load, and Nahnya angrily silenced him. There was no faltering in her. In spite of his resentment against her Ralph felt a kind of compunction at being carried by a woman. Anyway, his resentment had cooled somewhat; cooled enough to allow him to glance at the oddity of his situation.
"Lord! here's a queer go!" he thought. "What next?"
He was not under any apprehensions of danger to himself.
They went on for an hour or more, and the question of food became of more vital moment to Ralph than of what was before him. The air had the lack of motion and the cool smell of vegetable decay that suggested a deep forest. Finally he was put down for a longer period, and he heard the welcome sound of Charley's axe, and shortly afterward the crackle of the growing fire. In a little while the delicious emanation from baking bannock reached his nostrils, and at last he heard the hissing of the bacon in the pan, which signified the completion of the preparations. A certain anxiety attacked him.