But this was not the construction raft—and there were the horses.
Torrance had already lost a dozen of his best in some mysterious way.
It was with that thought that he had seized his rifle.
Then the woman!
Suddenly he became aware that something was wrong with the raft—and a few hundred yards ahead was a stretch of foaming rapids that would smash it to kindling wood. The woman stood leaning on the shaft of a broken sweep, watching the man. With unhurried but almost superhuman strength he was working the other sweep from the rear, aiming for the opposite bank.
The struggle seemed hopeless. Torrance read it at a glance, unaccustomed as he was to water. The tug of the rapids was drawing them swiftly downward in a course that was too slightly diagonal to its current to promise more than the faintest hope. The man seemed suddenly to grasp the extent of their peril, for his arms moved more quickly, the bow of the raft swinging about and pointing upstream; but still the current gripped them relentlessly.
The woman lifted her head and looked down along the whirling eddies to the froth of broken water. For a moment she stood, rigid, then turned to the horses, and from among them sprang a huge dog. Into its mouth she pressed the end of a rope, and it leaped far into the water.
Torrance's left hand fumbled back within the door for his field-glasses. Through them he saw the dog emerge lower down, still holding the rope, and dash in long bounds up the bank. As the strain of the rope came, it sank back on its haunches. The rope snapped up out of the water for a moment, and the dog plunged forward with the jerk, fighting every inch. Then it got a firmer hold and braced. Inch by inch the raft yielded to the extra power. It continued to drift toward the rapids, but also it was working to the bank now. At intervals the eddying current pulled the dog along, but always it braced against the tug, its feet digging into the loose gravel and sand.
The man was working hard, but so regularly that the dog felt but a fraction of the weight of the loaded raft. But what it felt was sufficient to turn the scales.
As the raft slithered in sideways to the bank, a small broncho dashed ashore, followed by four other horses. At a fast lope it led away toward the trees that grew down the distant slope to the river bottom.
Torrance awakened then. With livid face he swung the rifle up and fired. Tressa struck at his arm too late.
It was a long range, and to such an indifferent marksman a matter of luck. But to Tressa to try was sacrilege after the struggle they had witnessed. The bullet fell far short, glancing from the water in a swift slit in the reflecting surface.