He proved himself to be ingenious in the matter of catching fish with his bow and arrow. And Hal watched him with something like awe when he got a fire out of two sticks just by rubbing them together for an amazingly short time.
Big Boy did the honors of cooking the fish also, and Hal had nothing to do but sit down and help him eat them when they were finished broiling. Needless to say he did justice to the Indian’s culinary accomplishments.
Hal noticed, however, that Big Boy’s appetite could top his own by a pretty wide margin. In point of fact, he seemed to stuff, rather than eat, and washed down the whole with tremendous draughts of river water. However, he seemed contented and not at all distressed by any thoughts of indigestion, and greeted his white friend’s questioning look with a merry shake of his flat, black head.
After setting out again they paddled but a half hour when they came to a waterfall and were confronted with the necessity of portage. For two hours they struggled through the jungle with the canoe and came at last to a stretch of smooth water.
But their good fortune was not lasting, for a half hour found them confronting a series of rapids. Hal insisted upon doing his share and took up a paddle, protesting that the breakfast of fish had given him all the strength he needed for the task.
They raced through the first without incident, but before attempting the second, a dangerous looking one, they held a sort of pow-wow. Hal was decidedly against it, but Big Boy, by means of guttural grunts and sounds, assured him that the thing could be accomplished with careful paddling.
Consequently, they set out and, from the very first, experienced hectic moments. For a few hundred yards the rocky cliffs compressed the river-channel to a narrow gorge. Through this the water angrily forced its way, venting its fury by sending up foaming spray and high, lashing waves.
Big Boy motioned Hal at this juncture that he would do the paddling alone, and as if on second thought he removed the wrist watch and gave it to his friend. With a grin he motioned toward the spray foaming in the gorge and shook his black head vociferously as if to say that he was loath to get the watch wet.
Hal laughed and put it in his pocket for safe-keeping. The next second they were headed for the gorge, shooting through it with lightning speed. But halfway through, a wave struck the frail craft, water poured in, and before they were able to bail it out, another wave caught them and turned them completely over.
