"Fried, boy; yis, actally fried. Ef this infarnal heat lasts, I'll be ready to turn afore we reach the second bend."
"How goes the stream below?" asked Herbert.
"All clear for a while," answered the trapper, "all clear for a while. Put yer strength into the paddle till we come to the varge below, for the fire be runnin' fast, and it's agin reason for a mortal to stand this heat long."
"Shall we run out of the smoke at the next flight?" asked Herbert.
"I think so, boy; I think so," answered the trapper. "The maples grow to the bank at the foot of the next dip, and it isn't in the natur' of hard wood to make smoke like a balsam."
He would have said more, but his companion had nodded to him as he had ended the sentence, for they had come to the last flight of the rapids, and the great pool lay glimmering through the branches of the trees below.
The old man knew what was meant and said: "I know it, boy, I know it. Take the east run, for the water be deeper that way, and the boat sets deep. I won't trouble ye, for ye know the way. Lord! how the water biles! Now's yer time, boy,—to the right with ye! to the right! Sweep her round and let her go!"
Away and downward swept the boat. The strong eddies caught it, but the controlling paddle was stronger than the eddies and kept it to the line of its safest descent. Past rocks that stood in mid current, against which the swift-going water beat and dashed—past mossy banks and shadowed curves where the great eddies whirled—down over miniature falls into bubbles and froth the light craft swept, and with a final plunge and leap jumped the last cascade, and, darting out into the great basin, ran shoreward.
It touched the beach, and the trapper and Herbert rose to their feet; but for a moment neither stirred, for in front of them, not thirty feet away, at the line where the sand and the green mosses met, and looking directly at them, stood a man and a girl!