"Great ghost! but it's strong," he muttered, as, in spite of his efforts, the bow of the canoe was swung sideways by the weight of the water.
He leaned forward, drove the paddle deep in the yellow flood, and, with all his weight in the stroke, attempted to force her round.
Crack! The paddle, worn thin with weeks of hard wear, snapped like a pipestem. Nick was left with a mere foot or so of useless stump. The blade was gone.
Instantly the rising flood seized the canoe and sent her flying madly downstream. Like a feather she danced and spun among the whirling yellow eddies.
Recovering from the sudden shock of the accident, Nick made a desperate effort to steer inshore by using the stump of the paddle. It was useless. The flood, rising every minute, mocked his best efforts.
At last, streaming with perspiration, and with his heart beating like a hammer, he gave it up, and sat grimly quiet and silent. There was something of the stoicism of the Indian in this son of a San Francisco millionaire. He had done his best. Now the only thing was to wait and see what the river would do with him.
Mile after mile the relentless current bore him flying westward. Soon he was past all his landmarks, and speeding through country completely unknown to him. Once or twice the river contracted dangerously between walls of rock, and the canoe pitched and plunged among foam-tipped waves. But for the most part the banks were hillsides covered with primeval forest of fir and hemlock. There was nowhere any sign of man.
"It'll take me all my time to get back even if I do manage to hit the bank somewhere," said Nick to himself grimly, as he noted the tangled thickness of the woods on either hand.
He was in a tight place; he knew that. What he hoped was that some freak of the current would drive the canoe near enough to the bank to catch hold of a branch and so pull himself ashore.
But this did not happen, and, after his mad flight had lasted for a full hour, Nick became desperately anxious. In the distance, he could see that the valley narrowed greatly, and he more than suspected that he was approaching dangerous rapids.