The cruise of the Canoe Club

by W. L. Alden

The first rapid was a short but rough one. Still, it was no worse than the first of the Magog rapids, and Harry and Charley made up their minds that it could be safely run. The men of whom they made inquiries as to the rapids farther down said that they were impassable, and that the canoes had better pass directly into the canal, without attempting to run even the first rapid. Harry was inclined to think that this advice was good, but Charley pointed out that it would be possible to drag the canoes up the bank of the river and launch them in the canal at any point between St. John and Chambly, and that it would be time enough to abandon the river when it should really prove to be impassable.

Returning to the canoes, the Commodore gave the order to prepare to run the rapids. In a short time the fleet, with the Sunshine in advance, passed under the bridge; and narrowly escaping shipwreck on the remains of the wooden piles that once supported a bridge that had been destroyed by fire, entered the rapid. There was quite a crowd gathered to watch the canoes as they passed, but those people who wanted the excitement of seeing the canoes wrecked were disappointed. Not a drop of water found its way into the cockpit of a single canoe; and though there was an ugly rock near the end of the rapid, against which each canoeist fully expected to be driven as he approached it, the run was made without the slightest accident.

Drifting down with the current a mile or two below the town, the boys landed and encamped for the night. While waiting at St. John, Joe and Tom had provided themselves with mosquito-netting, but they had little use for it, for only a few mosquitoes made the discovery that four healthy and attractive boys were within reach. The night was cool and quiet, and the canoeists, tired with their long day’s work, slept until late in the morning.

Everything was prepared the next day for running the rapids which the men at St. John had declared to be impassable. The spars and all the stores were lashed fast; the sand-bags were placed in the after-compartments; the painters were rove through the stern-posts, and the life-belts were placed where they could be buckled on at an instant’s notice. After making all these preparations it was rather disappointing to find no rapids whatever between St. John and Chambly, or rather the Chambly railway bridge.

“It just proves what I said yesterday,” remarked Charley, turning round in his canoe to speak to his comrades, who were a boat’s length behind him. “People who live on the banks of a river never know anything about it. Now, I don’t believe there is a rapid in the whole Richelieu River, except at St. John. Halloo! keep back, boys—”

While he was speaking Charley and his canoe disappeared as suddenly as if the earth, or rather the water, had opened and swallowed them. The other boys in great alarm backed water, and then paddling ashore as fast as possible, sprung out of their canoes and ran along the shore, to discover what had become of Charley. They found him at the foot of a water-fall of about four feet in height over which he had been carried. The fall was formed by a long ledge of rock running completely across the river; and had the boys been more careful, and had the wind been blowing in any other direction than directly down the river, they would have heard the sound of the falling water in time to be warned of the danger into which Charley had carelessly run.

His canoe had sustained little damage, for it had luckily fallen where the water was deep enough to keep it from striking the rocky bottom. Charley had been thrown out as the canoe went over the fall, but had merely bruised himself a little. He towed his canoe ashore, and in answer to a mischievous question from Joe admitted that perhaps the men who had said that the Chambly rapids were impassable were right.

Below the fall and as far as the eye could reach stretched a fierce and shallow rapid. The water boiled over and among the rocks with which it was strewn, and there could not be any doubt that the rapid was one which could not be successfully run, unless, perhaps, by some one perfectly familiar with the channel. It was agreed that the canoes must be carried up to the canal, and after two hours of hard work the fleet was launched a short distance above one of the canal locks.

The lock-man did not seem disposed to let the canoes pass through the lock, but finally accepted fifty cents, and, grumbling to himself in his Canadian French, proceeded to lock the canoes through. He paid no attention to the request that he would open the sluices gradually, but opened them all at once and to their fullest extent. The result was that the water in the lock fell with great rapidity; the canoes were swung against one another and against the side of the lock, and Charley’s canoe, catching against a bolt in one of the upper gates, was capsized and sunk to the bottom, leaving her captain clinging to the stern of the Sunshine.