“Yes, I see it,” replied Olly, advancing to the pool, with the rod grasped in both hands.
“It would be better,” continued Hendrick, “if you could cast out into the stream beyond, but the line is too short for that, unless you could jump on to that big rock in the rapid, which is impossible with the river so high.”
Oliver looked at the rock referred to. It stood up in the midst of foaming water, full twenty feet from the bank. He knew that he might as well try to jump over the moon as attempt to leap upon that rock; nevertheless, without a moment’s hesitation, he rushed down the bank, sprang furiously off, cleared considerably more than half the distance, and disappeared in the foaming flood!
Hendrick was suddenly changed from a slow and sedate elephant into an agile panther. He sprang along the bank to a point lower down the stream, and was up to the waist in the water before Olly reached the point—struggling to keep his head above the surface, and at the same time to hold on to his rod. Hendrick caught him by the collar, and dragged him, panting, to land.
Paul and his father had each, with a shout of surprise or alarm, rushed for the same point, but they would have been too late.
“Olly, my son,” said Trench, in a remonstrative tone, “have you gone mad?”
“No, father; I knew that I could not jump it, but I’ve been advised never to say so till I have tried!”
“Nay, Oliver, be just,” said the guide, with a laugh. “I did truly advise you never to say ‘I can’t’ till you had tried, but I never told you to try the impossible. However, I am not sorry you did this, for I’d rather see a boy try and fail, than see him fail because of unwillingness to try. Come, now, I will show you something else to try.”
He took Oliver up the stream a few yards, and pointed to a ledge of rock, more than knee-deep under water, which communicated with the rock he had failed to reach.
“The ledge is narrow,” he said, “and the current crossing it is strong, but from what I’ve seen of you I think you will manage to wade out if you go cautiously, and don’t lose heart. I will go down stream again, so that if you should slip I’ll be ready to rescue.”