John had an unstrung kind of day. Starting down the river to fish soon after breakfast, he became so engrossed in his sport that he forgot all about lunch, and did not return till dinner-time, when he walked abstractedly into the room where we were sitting, and pulled out his watch; then after studying it and making calculations for a short time he remarked slowly, ‘I left here at six minutes past ten, and hanged if it isn’t ten minutes past six now; my watch must have stopped.’ Then he wandered off upstairs to his room, still ruminating over this extraordinary occurrence to his watch; but in his absence Ragnild had changed all his things into another cabin without telling him anything about it, so that he found his old habitation swept and garnished, and began to think, like Clever Alice, ‘This is none of I.’ However, he got over this difficulty and came down to dinner, still looking a trifle abstracted, but with his usual appetite. Afterwards the Skipper paddled him across the river to fish, and when coming back, John upset the canoe and nearly drowned them both in the presence of Esau and every native in the district, who joined in mocking them in the Norwegian tongue from the bank.
Finally he informed us that during his wanderings he had composed a short poem, ‘which,’ said he, ‘as you have not heard it, I will now proceed to recite.’
So we went to bed.
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
RAPID-RUNNING.
Sunday, September 5.—
To-day the Skipper and Esau determined to try to run the canoes down the river to Sjödals Lake, where we intend to leave them during our stay at Rus Vand.
All things being ready, the Skipper started about eleven o’clock on his perilous voyage, closely followed by Esau. The river is full of impracticable falls, some of them twenty or thirty feet high, but between these places there are splendid rapids, and the excitement of running them is delightfully fascinating. When we came to a bad fall we carried the canoes round, and enlisted the services of our two men to help us in this part of the performance. Öla did not like this at all, for carrying a canoe of 80 lbs. weight over very rough ground is hard work, and Öla loveth the fireside and the odour of roasting coffee better than hard work on the Sabbath.
Presently we came to a place which the Skipper wanted to run, but which Esau declared to be too dangerous; it was a very swift and rocky rapid, with two extremely sudden turns, the lower of which was only a few yards above a high fall. Esau only ran past the first turn, which was quite nervous work enough, and then got to shore and waited on the bank for the result of the Skipper’s exploit.
Down he came at about fifteen miles an hour, took the first turn most successfully, and then, by some extraordinary strokes of his paddle, which no man living but himself could have performed, and aided by a species of miracle, he got round the second; but then an eddy caught the canoe, and she became unmanageable, so that instead of stopping in a little creek of quiet water as he intended, he came straight on at a terrific speed, and ran high and dry on a ledge of rock just above the fall, losing his paddle at the shock. Wonderful to relate, the canoe was not a bit injured, but the paddle whirled over the abyss and disappeared for ever; and the Skipper was pleased because he had not done the same.
We spent five hours in this kind of amusement, and enjoyed it almost more than anything else we have done. The constant danger of a smash or an upset, the sensation of speed, the delight of the sudden rush to the gliding dip over a fall, with the water roaring past a rock on each side; the big waves below the fall, which catch the canoe and toss it from one to another till you feel as if you must be thrown out; and the curious appearance that the hurrying foam-flecked waters all round present, combine to make Sunday rapid-running a very popular pursuit.