Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/311

278 foarr. I'm a strangerr!" And, looking anxiously ahead, he drifted towards the breakers. We were then dining, and we watched him for our own instruction as we ate. We saw the swift stream take him, changing his course a little, and carry him into the rapid. He went down a few boat's lengths and struck. He jumped out, and saved the scow, hauling his boat back. Why he did not try to drag her down, instead of coming back was a mystery. At last we forgot him; and an hour later we got afloat. The first thing we saw was the old boat, empty and aground, at the side of the rapid. The man was nowhere to be seen. What had become of him? He could hardly have been drowned in three or four feet of water, however rapid. And yet he had said he was a stranger.

We paddled to the other side of the river and shot down a rare piece of swift water without difficulty. We were in a hurry, for the sky behind us was "black as thunder" with an enormous cloud, and already the air was filled with dead leaves from the mountain, carried out on the river by the first gusts. A few heavy drops of rain struck our faces and arms, and made little towers on the river.

The river was running with extreme rapidity, and the increasing wind, right behind us, ruffled