"She's losin' ground!" he exclaimed. "She's caught in the suck av the falls!" The light craft was pointed upstream and the woman was paddling frantically, but despite her utmost efforts the canoe was being drawn slowly toward the brink of the white water apron.
With a roar the big Irishman sprang to the water's edge and raced up the bank toward a tiny wharf to which were tied several skiffs with their oars in the locks. Connie measured the distance with his eye. "He'll never make it!" he decided, and jerking off coat and shoes, rushed to the water. "Keep paddling, ma'am!" he called at the top of his lungs, and plunged in. With swift, sure strokes the boy struck out for the canoe. The woman saw him coming and redoubled her efforts.
"Come back, ye idiot!" bellowed a voice from the bank, but Connie did not even turn his head. He had entered the water well upstream from the little craft, and the current bore him down upon it as he increased his distance from shore. A moment later he reached up and grasped the gunwale. "Keep paddling!" he urged, as he drew himself slowly over the bow, at the same time keeping the canoe in perfect balance. "Where's your other paddle?" he shouted.
"There's—only—this," panted the woman.
"Give it here!" cried the boy sharply, "and lie flat in the bottom! We've got to go over the dam!"
"No, no, no!" shrieked the woman, "we'll be killed! Several——"
With a growl of impatience, Connie wrenched the paddle from her hands. "Lie down, or I'll knock you down!" he thundered, and with a moan of terror the woman sank to the bottom of the canoe. Kneeling low, the boy headed the frail craft for a narrow strip of water that presented an unbroken, oily surface as it plunged over the apron. On either hand the slope showed only the churning white water. Connie gave one glance toward the bank where a little knot of men had collected, and the next moment the canoe shot, head on, straight over the brink of the falls. For an instant it seemed to hang suspended with half its length hanging over, clear of the water. Then it shot downward to bury its bow in the smother of boiling churning, white water at the foot of the apron. For a moment it seemed to Connie as though the canoe were bound to be swamped. It rolled loggily causing the water it had shipped to slosh over the clothing and face of the limp form of the woman in the bottom. The boy was afraid she would attempt to struggle free of it, but she lay perfectly still. She had fainted. The canoe hesitated for a moment, wobbling uncertainly, as the overroll at the foot of the falls held it close against the apron, then it swung heavily into the grip of an eddy and Connie at length succeeded in forcing it toward the bank, wallowing so low in the water that the gunwales were nearly awash.
Eager hands grasped the bow as it scraped upon the shore, and while the men lifted the still form from the bottom, Connie slipped past them and made his way to the place he had left his coat and shoes.
Mike Gillum met him at the top of the bank.
"Arrah! Me laddie, ut's a gr-rand thrick ye pulled! No wan but a tillicum av the Narth country c'ud of done ut! Oi see fer mesilf how ut come ye're the pardner av Waseche Bill. Av Oi had me doubts about yer bitin' off more thin ye c'ud chaw wid Hurley, Oi've got over 'em, now, an'—" He stopped abruptly and glanced toward the river. "Shpakin' av Hurley—there he comes, now!" he whispered, and Connie glanced up to see a huge man advancing toward them at the head of a little group that approached from the point where he had landed the canoe. The boy stared in amazement—it was the red-shirted giant of the stalled wagon.