RUNNING THE RAPID.
It was time for dinner when the tired canoeists awoke, and by the time they had finished their meal and were once more afloat it was nearly three o'clock. They ran three more rapids without any trouble. Their canoes frequently struck on sunken rocks; but as they were loaded so as to draw more water aft than they did forward, they usually struck aft of midships, and did not swing around broadside to the current. When a canoe struck in this way, her captain unjointed his paddle, and taking a blade in each hand, generally succeeded in lifting her clear of the rock by pushing with both blades against the bottom of the river. In the next rapid Joe's canoe ran so high on a rock that was in the full force of the current that he could not get her afloat without getting out of her. He succeeded in getting into her again, however, without difficulty, by bringing her alongside of the rock on which he was standing, although he had to step in very quickly, as the current swept her away the moment he ceased to hold her.
In running these rapids the canoes were kept at a safe distance apart, so that when one ran aground, the one following her had time to steer clear of her. At Charley's suggestion, the painter of each canoe was rove through the stern-post instead of the stem-post. By keeping the end of the painter in his hand the canoeist whose canoe ran aground could jump out and feel sure that the canoe could not run away from him, and that he could not turn her broadside to the stream by hauling on the painter, as would have been the case had the painter been rove through the stem-post.
"I want to see that Sherbrooke postmaster!" exclaimed Joe, after running what was the seventh rapid, counting from the dam at Magog. "He said there were only one or two little rapids in this river. Why, there isn't anything but rapids in it."
"There's something else just ahead of us worse than rapids," said Charley. "Look at that smoke."
Just a little distance below the fleet the river was completely hidden by a dense cloud of smoke that rested on the water, and rose like a heavy fog-bank above the tops of the highest trees. It was caused by a fire in the woods—probably the very fire which the boys had started on the previous night. How far down the river the smoke extended, and whether any one could breathe while in it, were questions of great importance to the canoeists.
The fleet stopped just before reaching the smoke, and the boys backed water gently with their paddles while they discussed what they had better do. It was of no use to go ashore with the hope of finding how far the smoke extended, for it would have been as difficult to breathe on shore as on the water.
"There's one good thing about it," said Charley; "the smoke blows right across the river, so the chances are that it does not extend very far down stream."
"We can't hear the noise of any rapid," said Harry, "and that's another good thing. There can't be a rapid of any consequence within the next quarter of a mile."