He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat and refused to come out. Panting heavily, he was led up the beach and finally allowed to rest. As he threw himself down on the ground, a crashing noise filled the air. Sandy forced himself to look around.
The tangled hump of tree branches was rising out of the water. As Sandy watched with a dazed expression, it seemed to give a heaving sigh before settling back into the river. There was a grinding roar and suddenly the trees were gone, claimed by the howling fury of Cutthroat Rapids. A minute later, and Sandy would have gone over too.
CHAPTER NINE
Smoke on the Horizon
“Care to talk about it, Sandy?” Mr. Cook asked as he threw three or four thick slabs of bacon into a frying pan. Sandy was sitting, wrapped in a blanket, propped up next to a roaring fire, a cup of steaming instant bouillon in his hand. Joe was squatting on his heels, Indian-fashion, in front of a flat rock, mixing up a batch of johnnycake. Mike was kneeling beside Sandy, busy opening two No. 2 cans of peaches. A casual visitor would have taken it for an ordinary camping party getting ready for a relaxed evening meal. Except for Sandy’s drawn face, there was no hint of their recent close brush with death.
Sandy took a deep breath and another swallow of broth before he answered. “Sure,” he replied. “But there’s not much to say. I kept following the trout farther and farther out into the stream until finally I realized I was too far.”
“You couldn’t get back?”
Sandy shook his head in disgust. “I shouldn’t really tell you this. It makes me look like such a dope. I was just about to head back for shore when suddenly this enormous trout finned out right under me. He must have been at least a foot and a half.”
“Whew,” whistled Joe softly. “That’s the one that always gets away.”
Sandy smiled wanly. “That’s the one that almost got me! I went after him.”
“And that brought you out still farther into the river,” concluded Mr. Cook.