“He has only a pole. He can’t guide the thing. He’s lost!” groaned Gordon Duncan.
He did not know the skill of the man. Poking at a cake of ice here, fanning the water with his pole there, jabbing, poling, fighting his best, the raftsman drove his clumsy craft toward the western bank. It seemed that he would make the bank before the gurgling waters drew him into that maelstrom. Faye held her breath and hoped.
Now he was thirty feet from the bank, now twenty, now—now he rose to his feet as if for a try at a leap. His four dogs howled dismally. He looked at them in dismay. That look was his undoing. An eddy caught his raft and carried it toward midstream. The next instant a redoubled pull of current shot him forward.
Only one hope remained. By the left shore, crowding thirty feet out over the water, was a glacier-like snowbank. Solidly joined to the shore as it was, this bank did not heave and roll as did the free ice. Only beneath it the black waters raced. Between the hard packed snow and the river’s surface was a broad dark line. This was an air space where the snow had been worn away by higher water.
“He can’t go under,” Gordon Duncan breathed. “He’d be killed. He must jump for the solid snow. It’s his only hope.”
The Indians in the skin canoe were battling the current to bring their canoe ashore. As for Gordon Duncan and Faye, they had eyes only for the drama that was being enacted there before them.
“Bravo!” murmured Gordon Duncan as a great dog, leaping far and wide, made the snow bar in safety. One, two, three, four, the dogs were away.
And now, now! Faye breathed in little gasps. The recluse, standing erect, motionless, prepared to leap. Now he bent low, now he sprang straight up and away.
“He—he’s safe!” breathed Gordon Duncan.
But now. What happened? Did the current give the raft a sudden turn? Did the old man’s strength suddenly fail? His leap fell short. He struck the snow, tottered there for a second; then, as the raft with its load of precious green gold shot into the darkness beneath the overhanging snowbar, he tottered and fell full into the raging flood.