About noon, while the boys were paddling through a deep and narrow part of the creek, Ned called attention to a bunch of ducks that were feeding in the reeds some distance down the right shore. All eyes were turned in that direction, and consequently no one happened to glance toward the opposite bank.
Clay had fallen a little behind his companions, and was three or four yards to the left of them. He was drifting along with his gaze fixed on the ducks, when all at once his canoe began to twist and oscillate in a most alarming manner.
He turned quickly to see what was the matter, and the first glance sent a chill of fear to his heart. He was on the edge of a violently agitated patch of water that kept moving round and round in constantly narrowing circles until it ended in a funnel shaped aperture that went beneath the surface, and was itself whirling in dizzy revolutions.
Even as he looked his canoe drifted into the second circle, and mounted toward a great rock fifty or sixty feet high that rose straight from the water on the left shore.
Clay realized his situation instantly. He was caught in the whirlpool which some of the farmers had spoken about in a vague manner, as though they doubted its existence. There was no doubt about it now. The whirlpool was a stern reality, and he was fast in its embrace.
Without calling his companions, Clay tried to paddle away from the circling current. But to his horror and consternation the canoe was unmanageable. The violent paddle strokes simply made it swing around on its keel.
Then Clay became terribly frightened, and shouted for help. It was indeed high time. He had already drifted to the base of the rock where the whirlpool terminated, and was now swinging back toward the center of the creek.
The appeal for help—though its meaning was not comprehended at first—brought the other boys to Clay's assistance. That is to say they paddled toward the dangerous spot and were within an ace of getting in the same fix, when Clay frantically warned them back.
"Keep away! keep!" he shouted. "You must find some other way to help me."
Ned was the first to grasp the situation. During the last few days he had heard more than one tale about this dreaded whirlpool with its merciless undertow, and now it made him sick and faint to see Clay's peril, and yet be unable to devise a way of helping him.