Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/381

Rh the savage fangs of that animal. She passed the floating tree, left it behind rapidly, sending her canoe forward with all the skill at her command, with all the strength which fear gave her body. Water boiled about the bow, deep eddies fell backward from her frantic paddle to be swallowed in the froth of the eager current.

She swept down a straight stretch of stream, between ranks of reeds and spires of drowned cedar. Far to her left was the path Taylor had taken, far to the left of her raced Pauguk—How fast? How far? She could not reason, could not calculate. Two days ago she had been keyed to great danger, to great activities. She had been able to think then, with great clarity, great rapidity but the thing at stake that day was her property, her pride, her devotion to her father's ideal. Then it had been timber and its related possessions. Today it was a man and her heart at stake—and there was no ability to think or plan. Her breath was fast and loud in her throat. She prayed brokenly—

She approached a jam, where brush and snags had lodged. She crossed the current toward the opening where water boiled through. She cried out when she saw the stout broken branches of a dead tree in the froth, reaching up to tear the bottom from her canoe. She tried to stop, to back, to make land, but could not fight the pull of the current. She felt the impact, saw the bottom of her frail craft bulge as it struck the half submerged tree; saw the bulge run backward toward her, felt the hard pressure of the snag against her knee—and she was through, gasping, cold—but safe, and only a trickle of water coming through the scratched skin of the canoe—