Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/89

 Again they went on in silence, the so and of the paddle behind Hugh being the only proof that  he was not alone in this whole forest-covered  world. Past one curve and then another they went, until they began to hear a new sound ahead  of them, a dull muffled roar that he did not in  the least understand. He was about to ask what it was when the Indian spoke at last, a single  inarticulate word which was evidently meant as a  warning. For in an instant they began to move faster and faster, the sound grew louder, and  they plunged, all in one breathless second, down  a foaming slope of shouting white rapids. Great black bowlders shouldered up through the water, threatening them in a thousand directions, but  somehow the frail canoe threaded its way like  magic in and out among the rocks and came safe  into the calm pool below. Before Hugh could speak they had swept into another reach of tossing water and then another, the canoe staggering  back and forth in the furious current, but coming  finally out into the quiet stream again.

Then at last, warmed to friendliness perhaps