Ben O’Dell and Jim McAllister reached home soon after dinner time next day, canoeless, baggageless and empty but very well pleased with themselves. They found Mrs. O’Dell and little Marion Sherwood drying the last spoon.
Mrs. O’Dell gave the returned voyagers just one look before replacing the chicken stew on the stove to reheat and the baked pudding in the oven. Then she looked again and welcomed them affectionately.
“I hope you had a good time,” she said. “We didn’t expect you home so soon. Why didn’t you bring your blankets and things up with you?”
“We didn’t fetch them home with us,” said Uncle Jim. “Left them a long ways upriver, Flora. There wasn’t much to fetch back—a few old blankets and a teakettle and a mite of grub. But we had a good time. For a little while there I was having more fun than I’ve had in twenty years, thanks to Ben.”
“I ran Big Rapids, mother,” said Ben, with a mixed expression of face and voice. “I was paddling stern, you know, and we were in a hurry, and I let her go. The water was at its lowest and worst, but we got through—all but.”
“Sure we got through!” exclaimed McAllister. “It was the prettiest bit of work I ever saw! We were clean through, and we’d of been home earlier, blankets an’ all, if Ben’s paddle hadn’t bust.”
“Jim McAllister! You let Ben shoot Big Rapids at low water?—that boy? What were you thinking of, Jim?”
“Let nothing, Flora! He was aft, because he’s a bigger man than I am and a better one—though a mite reckless, I must say. I warned him, but not extra strong. And he did it! If there’s another man on the river could do it any better, show him to me!”
“You are old enough to have more sense, Jim. And if you did it, where’s your dunnage? Why did you leave it all upriver?”
“Did you run a canoe through those rapids, Ben?” asked the little Sherwood girl. “Right down those rapids between here and French River—those rapids all full of rocks and black waves and whirlpools?”