Big Jim was chuckling delightedly over the supposed success. “Reckon musky never set fer his picter afore! Did he look pleasant? Pard, yer sure did thet trick well. Had a bit o’ buck fever fust along, I reckon. Thought yer seemed kind o’ shaky. Don’t yer mind thet none. I’ve seen a feller with a clean open shot at a standin’ deer within fifty yards wobble his rifle round so thet th’ safest thing in thet neighborhood was thet thar deer. Now we’ll go on fer th’ next.”
Walter did not have the courage to tell the guide then of his second blunder, but resolved that when they got in camp that night he would own up like a man. For the next three miles nothing eventful occurred. Then the boy got his third chance. It was a great blue heron this time. It was standing on one foot, the other drawn up until it was hidden among the feathers of the under part of the body. The long neck was laid back on the shoulders, the sharp bill half buried in the feathers of the breast. The big bird appeared to be dozing. The light fell just right, and as it was intensified by reflection from the water, Walter felt sure of a good photograph.
Little by little the canoe drifted in. Forty feet, thirty, twenty, ten—click! This time there was no mistake. Working quickly but cautiously, with as little motion as possible, he pulled out and tore off the tab, set the shutter and, as the big bird spread its wings, a second click caught it at the very start of its flight. The shutter was set at the two hundredth part of a second, so that despite the nearness of the subject, Walter felt reasonably certain that little movement would show in the photograph.
“Get him?” asked Jim.
“Two of him,” replied Walter, a note of pardonable pride in his voice.
“Thet’s th’ stuff! Ye’re larnin’ fast,” said the guide, once more shooting the canoe into the current.
This success went far to offset the previous failures and the boy’s spirits rose. He began to enjoy his surroundings as he had not been able to since the episode with the deer. Mile after mile slipped behind them, the limpid brown water sliding between the unbroken wilderness on either bank. Try as he would he could not get over the impression of sliding down-hill, such was the optical effect of the swiftly-moving water.
At last he heard a dull roar which increased in volume with every minute. Then they rounded a sharp turn, and before them the whole river became a churning, tumbling mass of white, with here and there an ugly black rock jutting above the surface. The canoe felt the increased movement of the water and the boy’s heart beat faster as the bow of the little craft still pointed straight down the middle of the river. Could it be that Big Jim would try to run those tumbling, roaring rapids!
“Sit tight and don’t move!” came the guide’s sharp, terse command.
The canoe all but grazed a great gray boulder. Then dead ahead, not two inches under water, Walter saw another. Surely they must strike this, and then—he closed his eyes for just a second. When he opened them the canoe was just shooting through the churning froth on the edge of the rock, and that immediate danger was past. He realized then how completely the man behind him was master of the river and their craft. With fascinated eyes he watched each new danger loom up and pass almost before he realized its ugly threat.