They went. McAllister was an old riverman and had been down these rapids many times in past years, but never before when the river was low. In high water it was a simple matter for any good canoeman to shoot Big Rapids, but in dry seasons it was only attempted by the most skilled or most daring and not always successfully. Uncle Jim was seasoned, but he got a lot of thrills in a short time at five o’clock by the sun of this particular afternoon.
As usual, it seemed to him that the jouncing, curling, black “ripples” with their fronts shot with green and amber and their tops crested with white lather, rushed up to the canoe. That is the way with strong black and white water. The canoe seemed to be stationary, trembling slightly from bow to stern as if gathering herself to spring at the last moment to meet the shock, but otherwise as motionless as if held by ropes. Up came the raging waters, up and past the jumping, squirming canoe. Big black rocks bared themselves suddenly from white veils of froth and green veils of smooth water, shouldered at the canoe, roared at her, then vanished to the rear.
Uncle Jim felt a strong impulse, an impulse of curiosity, to look back at young Ben O’Dell. But he did not obey it. He kept his half-shut eyes to the front and now made a dig with his paddle to the right and now a slash to the left. Spray flew. The canoe jounced, shivered and jumped and yet seemed to hang unprogressing amid the furious upward and backward stream of water and rock and rocky shore. Thin films of water slipped in over the gleaming gunnels and heavy lumps of water jumped aboard and flopped aboard, now from the right and now from the left. Uncle Jim received a tubful of it smash in the chest.
Uncle Jim enjoyed it, but he did not approve of it. It was too darned reckless; and he still believed that the very least that would happen to them before they reached smooth water would be the destruction of the canoe. But he wondered at Ben. He had taught Ben to handle a canoe in rough water and smooth, but never in such rough and tricky water as this. And here was the young fellow twisting and shooting and steadying her down in a manner which McAllister had never seen surpassed in his whole life on the river. His anxiety for Ben was almost topped by his pride in Ben.
And it looked as if they’d make it, by thunder! Here was the last ripple roaring up at them, baring its black teeth between white lips. And here was the slobbering black channel, shaking with bubbles and fringed with froth, and here was the canoe fair in it. The shouldering rocks sloshed past. Through!
Uncle Jim heard a sharp crack clear above the tumult of the rapids. He knew what had happened without looking. Ben’s paddle had snapped. He shot his own paddle backward over his shoulder. But he was too late, though he could not possibly have been quicker. The canoe swerved like a maddened horse and struck the last ledge of Big Rapids with a bump and a rip. Then she spun around and rolled over and off.
Uncle Jim and Ben swam ashore from the pool below the rapids, Ben with his uncle’s paddle gripped firmly in one hand.
“We were through,” said Ben. “If my paddle had lasted another ten seconds we’d have made it.”
McAllister grasped his hand.
“Sure thing we were through!” he cried. “Ben, I’m proud of you! I couldn’t of done it, not for my life! Never saw a prettier bit of work in a nastier bit of water in all my born days!”