“Bo' jou' an' bon voyage. Gare a vous on de Longue Rapide. You mak' de portage hon dat rapide, n'est ce pas?”
“No, sir. No portage for me, Duprez. I'll run her.”
“Prenez garde, M'sieu le Docteur,” answered Duprez, shrugging his shoulders. “Maudit! Dat's ver' fas' water!”
“Don't worry about me,” cried the doctor. “Just watch me take this little riffle.”
“Bien!” cried Duprez, as the doctor slipped his canoe into the eddy and, with a smooth, noiseless stroke, sent her up toward the point where the stream broke into a riffle at the head of the rapid which led to the falls below. It may be that the doctor was putting a little extra weight on his paddle or that he did not exercise that unsleeping vigilance which the successful handling of the canoe demands, but whatever the cause, when the swift water struck the canoe, in spite of all his strength and skill, he soon found himself almost in midstream and going down the rapids.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Duprez, dancing in his excitement from one foot to the other. “A droit! a droit! Non! Don' try for go hup! Come out on de heddy!”
The doctor did not hear him, but, realizing the hopelessness of the frontal attack upon the rapid, he steered his canoe toward the eddy and gradually edged her into the quiet water.
“You come ver' close on de fall, mon gar'!” cried Duprez, as the doctor paddled slowly up the edge past him. “You bes' pass on de portage. Not many mans go hup on de rapids comme ca.”
“All right, Duprez. I hit her too hard, that's all.”
Once more the doctor moved toward the riffle. He had done the thing before and he was not to be beaten now. As the eddy bore him toward the swift water again he carefully gauged the angle of attack, so that when the nose of the canoe entered the riffle, with the trick that all canoemen know, he held her up firm against the water, and, with no very great effort, but by skilful manipulations of the force of the current, he shoved her gradually across the riffle into the slow water near the farther bank, and with a triumphant wave of the paddle disappeared around the bend.