Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/299

266 head, he found the way out for me when I had got into a bad place.

It was in this way: I had gone in first on rather a long and rough descent. There was a bend on the rapid, and in going round I struck heavily and unexpectedly, and swung right athwart the race, amidships fast on a huge brown shelf-rock. The divided water caught bow and stern, and held the canoe against the stone. I got one foot out against the rock and stopped her trembling; and there I was, fast. I could hold her steady, but could do no more. The stone was so shaped that I could not stand on it. The water ran deep and strong, and if I pushed off altogether I should be apt to go down broadside or stern first. So I sat thinking for a second or two; and then I looked back to wave to Smith to keep off. I saw his boat, but not him. He was swimming, "accoutred as he was," right across the river above, to give me a hand. His judgment had told him that I was badly placed. In a few minutes he had reached the head of the rapid, stepped from stone to stone till he caught hold of my "painter," and next moment my bow came round to the race, and down I shot like a rocket. In a few minutes he followed in the same course.

Just below that rapid we had an unpleasant experience,—the only one on our whole voyage.