The Woman from Outside / [On Swan River]

by Hulbert Footner

He saw that he was going to make it, with something to spare. When he had the log-jam safely under his quarter, he stopped paddling, and, bringing the canoe around, drifted down on it. There was plenty of water out here. He held up a hand to Mary, and according to pre-arrangement she gradually took up the strain on the line. The canoe slowed up, and the current began to race past.

So far so good. The line held the canoe slightly broached to the current, thus the pressure of the current itself kept him from edging ashore. The log-pile loomed up squarely ahead of him. Mary let him down on it hand over hand. He manœuvred himself abreast an immense log pointing up and down river, alongside of which the current slipped silkily. Casting his loop over the stump of a branch, he was held fast and the strain was taken off Mary’s arms.

The moccasined foot protruded from the water at the bow of his canoe. He soon saw the impossibility of attempting to work from the frail canoe, so he untied the rope which bound him to it, and pulled himself out on the logs. The rope from the shore was still around his body in case of a slip. He was taking no unnecessary chances.

The body was caught in some way under the same great log that his canoe was fastened to. The current tore at the projecting foot with a snarl. The foot oscillated continually under the pull, and sometimes disappeared altogether, only to spring back into sight with a ghastly life-like motion. Stonor cautiously straddled the log, and groped beneath it. His principal anxiety was that log and all might come away from the jam and be carried down, but there was little danger that his insignificant weight would disturb so great a bulk.

The body was caught in the fork of a branch underneath. He succeeded in freeing the other foot. He guessed that a smart pull up-stream would liberate the whole, but in that case the current would almost surely snatch it from his grasp. He saw that it would be an impossible task from his insecure perch to drag the body out on the log, and in turn load it into the fragile canoe. His only chance lay in towing it ashore.

So, with the piece of line he had brought for the purpose, he lashed the feet together, and made the other end fast to the bow-thwart of the canoe. Then he got in and adjusted his stern-line as before—it became the bow-line for the return journey. In case it should become necessary to cut adrift from the canoe, he took the precaution of passing a line direct from his body to that which he meant to tow. When all was ready he signalled to Mary to haul in.

Now began the most difficult half of his journey. On the strength of Mary’s arms depended the freeing of the body. It came away slowly. Stonor had an instant’s glimpse of the ghastly tow bobbing astern, before settling down to the business in hand. For awhile all went well, though the added pull of the submerged body put a terrific strain on Mary. Fortunately she was as strong as a man. Stonor aided her all he could with his paddle, but that was little. He was kept busy fending his egg-shell craft off the rocks. He had instructed Mary, as the slack accumulated, to walk gradually up the beach. This was to avoid the danger of the canoe’s broaching too far to the current. But Mary could not do it under the increased load. The best she could manage was to brace her body against the stones, and pull in hand over hand.

As the line shortened Stonor saw that he was going to have trouble. Instead of working in-shore, the canoe was edging further into the stream, and ever presenting a more dangerous angle to the tearing current. Mary had pulled in about a third of the line, when suddenly the canoe, getting the current under her dead rise, darted out into mid-stream like a fish at the end of a line, and hung there canting dangerously. The current snarled along the gunwale like an animal preparing to crush its prey.

The strain on Mary was frightful. She was extended at full length with her legs braced against an outcrop of rock. Stonor could see her agonized expression. He shouted to her to slack off the line, but of course the roar of the water drowned his puny voice. In dumb-play he tried desperately to show her what to do, but Mary was possessed of but one idea, to hang on until her arms were pulled out.

The canoe tipped inch by inch, and the boiling water crept up its freeboard. Finally it swept in, and Stonor saw that all was over with the canoe. With a single stroke of his knife he severed the rope at the thwart behind him; with another stroke the rope in front. When the tug came on his body he was jerked clean out of the canoe. It passed out of his reckoning. By the drag behind him, he knew he still had the dead body safe.