The onrushing canoe was almost through the rapids now. Could it be that two inexperienced boys were to come through that mad mill race alive? If they could last a moment more they were safe, but ahead of them was the most dangerous part of the rapids. Two huge rocks stood out in midstream scarcely six feet apart. Between them the water rushed and roared like a cataract. Below this spot the rapids ended and the current gradually slowed down to its normal swiftness.
Fred and Grant saw all this in the twinkling of an eye and they knew that the test was now to come. Both boys braced themselves; so swiftly did they move now that it almost seemed as if they were standing still and that it was the two great rocks that were charging down upon them. Closer and closer they came. With bated breath George and John watched from the shore, realizing their companions’ peril.
Fred, in the bow of the canoe, gripped his paddle with all his strength. One moment more and their lot would be decided. The rocks looked like mountains as they bore down upon them. Now they were just ahead, ugly and bristling in their might; now they were alongside; now they were past. Fred and Grant had run the rapids in safety. They could scarcely realize it. The danger was over and they were alive.
“Yea, Fred!” shouted Grant. “We’re through!”
“Thank goodness,” sighed Fred, and he sank back limply against one of the thwarts of the canoe.
“You’re a wonder,” cried Grant.
“It’s a wonder we’re alive, you mean.”
“That’s true, too. But the way you steered!”
“It wasn’t due to any skill on my part; we were just lucky.”
“Anyway,” exclaimed Grant happily, “we ran the rapids and I wouldn’t give up that experience for a million dollars now.”