“Dat is too bad,” observed Rollin, with a growl of discontent.
“It might have been worse,” said Ian.
“Bah!” returned Rollin.
“Pooh!” ejaculated Victor.
“Very good,” said Ian; “I only hope the truth of my remark mayn’t be proved to both of you.”
It has been asserted by the enemies of Ian Macdonald that the catastrophe which followed was the result of a desire on his part to prove the truth of his own remark, but we acquit him of such baseness. Certain it is, however, that the very next rapid they came to they ran straight down upon a big stone over which the water was curling in grand fury.
“Hallo!” shouted Ian, in sudden alarm, dipping his paddle powerfully on the right.
“Hi!” yelled Rollin, losing his head and dipping wildly on the same side—which was wrong.
“Look out!” roared Victor.
He might as well have roared “Look in,” for any good that could have come of it. There was a crash; the canoe burst up and doubled down, the bow was hurled high in the air, the rest of it lay out limp, and disappeared. Rollin went clean over the rock, Victor went round it, and Ian, after grasping it for a second, went under it apparently, for, like the canoe, he disappeared. That rapid treated these voyagers roughly. Of the three, Michel Rollin appeared to suffer most. After sending him round the stone in a rush of foam that caused his arms and legs to go round like a mad windmill, it sucked him down, rubbed his head on the boulders at the bottom, shot him up feet foremost into the air, received him on its raging breast again, spun him round like a teetotum, and, at last, hurled him almost contemptuously upon a sandbank at its foot.