Tug Blackstock’s canoe, a strong and swift “Fredericton” of polished canvas, built on the lines of a racing birch, was kept under cover in his wood shed at the end of the village street. He shouldered it, carrying it over his head with the mid bar across his shoulders, and bore it down to the water’s edge. Then he went back and fetched his two canoe poles and his paddles.
Waving Jim into the bow, he was just about to push off when his narrowed eyes caught sight of something else rolling and threshing helplessly down the rapid. Only too well he saw what it was. His face pale with concern, he thrust the canoe violently up into the tail of the rapid, just in time to catch the blindly sprawling shape before it could sink to the depths of the pool. Tenderly he lifted it out upon the shore. It was battered almost out of recognition, but he knew it.
“Poor devil! Poor devil!” he muttered sorrowfully. “He was a man all right, but he didn’t understand rapids for shucks!”
Then he noticed that in the dead man’s right hand was clutched a tiny child’s jacket. He understood—he saw the whole scene, and he swore compassionately under his breath, as he unloosed the rigid fingers. Alive or dead, the little one must be found at once.
He called Jim sharply, and showed him the soaked red jacket. Jim sniffed at it, but the wearer’s scent was long ago soaked out of it. He looked it over, and pawed it, wagging his tail doubtfully. He could see it was a small child’s jacket, but what was he expected to do with it?
After a few moments, Tug Blackstock patted the jacket vigorously, and then waved his arm up-stream.
“Go, find him, Jim!” he ordered. Jim, hanging upon each word and gesture, comprehended instantly. He was to find the owner of the little jacket—a child—somewhere up the river. With a series of eager yelps—which meant that he would do all that living dog could do—he started up the shore, on the full run.
By this time the mill whistles had blown, the screaming of the saws had stopped, the men, powdered with yellow sawdust, were streaming out from the wide doors. They flocked down to the water.
In hurried words Blackstock explained the situation. Then he stepped once more into his canoe, snatched his long, steel-shod pole, and thrust his prow up into the wild current, leaving the dead man to the care of the coroner and the village authorities. Before he had battled his way more than a few hundred yards upwards through the raging smother, two more canoes, with expert polers standing poised in them like statues, had pushed out to follow him in his search.
The rest of the crowd picked up the body and bore it away reverently to the court-room, with sympathetic women weeping beside it.