Canoeing at night is always a ticklish business, but on a swift river, full of rapids, as is the Magog, it is exceedingly dangerous. The fire lighted the way for the fleet for a short distance, but before a landing-place was reached a turn on the river shut out the light, and at the same time the noise of a rapid close at hand was heard.
The boys had no desire to entangle themselves in unknown rapids in the dark, and paddled at once for the shore opposite to that where the fire was raging. They found when they reached it that it was a perpendicular bank on which it was impossible to land. They floated down a short distance, hoping to find a landing-spot, but none could be found. Then they attempted to cross the stream to the other shore, hoping that the fire would not spread in that direction. To their dismay they found that they were already almost within the clutch of the rapid. The current had become strong and swift, and it was evident before they had got half-way across the river that nothing but the hardest paddling could keep them from being drawn into the rapid. It was an occasion when everybody had to look out for himself, and depend on his own paddles for safety. The young canoeists struck out manfully. Harry was the first to reach the shore, where he caught hold of the root of a tree and kept his canoe stationary. Tom followed closely behind him, and Harry told him to catch hold of the Sunshine until he could make the Twilight's painter fast to the root. Joe arrived a little later, for his canoe had run on a rock, and for a few minutes he was in great danger of a capsize.
The three canoeists succeeded in tying up to the bank, where they expected every moment to be joined by Charley. The minutes passed on, but Charley did not appear. His comrades shouted for him, but there was no answer. Indeed, the rapid made such a noise, now that they were close upon it, that they could not have heard Charley's voice had he been a few yards from them.
The fear that an accident had happened to Charley made the other boys very uneasy. Joe cast his canoe loose, and paddled out into the river, and nearly across it, looking for some signs of the Midnight and her owner; but he came back unsuccessful, after having narrowly escaped being carried down the rapid. There could no longer be any doubt that the current had swept the Midnight away, and that Charley had been compelled to make the hazardous and almost hopeless attempt of running the rapid in the dark.
As soon as Joe returned, Harry said that he would paddle out into the middle of the river, where Charley was last seen, and would let his canoe drift down the rapid, but Tom and Joe insisted that he should do no such thing. Said Joe: "Either Charley is drowned or he isn't. If he isn't drowned, he is somewhere at the foot of the rapid, where we'll find him as soon as it gets light. If he is drowned, it won't do him any good for another of us to get drowned."
"Joe is right," said Tom. "We must stay here until daylight."
"And meanwhile Charley may be drowned!" exclaimed Harry.
"I don't believe he is," replied Tom. "He's the best canoeist of any of us, and he is too good a sailor to get frightened. Then he is very cautious, and I'll bet that the first thing he did when he found himself in the rapid was to buckle his life-belt round him."
"If he did that it wouldn't hurt him if he were capsized."
"Not if the rapid is like those we've run, and the chances are that it is. I feel sure that Charley has got through it all right, and without losing his canoe. We'll find him waiting for us in the morning."