WHEN the boys were compelled to jump overboard they could see that the water was only about two feet deep; but they did not know whether they could stand up against the fierce current. They found that they could, although they had to move slowly to avoid being swept off their feet. Harry’s canoe was easily pushed off the rock on which it had run, and the moment it was out of the way the other canoes were free. Each canoeist seized the stern of his own canoe, and let it drag him down the rest of the rapid, which fortunately was a short one. While performing this feat the knees of the canoeists were scraped over the rocks, and they received several unpleasant bruises; but they thought it was impossible to get into their canoes in swift water, and so had no choice except to float down hanging on to the sterns of the canoes.
Reaching the smooth water, they swum and pushed the canoes before them toward the shore. Here they found a great bank of sawdust that had floated down the river from the mill at Magog, and it was so soft and elastic that they determined to sleep on it that night, instead of sleeping in their canoes, since the sky was perfectly clear and there was no danger of rain.
The canoes were hauled out on the bank, so that the stores could be readily taken out of them. The canvas canoe did not seem to be in the least injured either by the rock on which she had struck or by the collision with the other canoes. Harry’s canoe had sustained a little damage where one of the planks had been ground against the rock on which she had hung so long, but it was not enough to cause her to leak, and the injuries of the other canoes were confined to their varnish.
“All the trouble,” remarked Harry, “came from following too close after one another. To-morrow, if we find any more rapids, we will keep the canoes far enough apart, so that if one canoe runs aground the others can turn out for her.”
“We could have got into the canoes easy enough if we had only thought so,” said Tom. “If I’d stood up on the rock and held the canoe along-side of it, I could have stepped in without any difficulty.”
“Why didn’t you do it, then?” asked Harry.
“Because I didn’t happen to think of it, and because all the rest of you had started to float down after your canoes.”
“I noticed one thing about a rapid which if I was Commodore it would be my duty to impress on your faithful but ignorant minds,” said Joe. “When you see a big ripple on the water the rock that makes it isn’t under the ripple, but is about four or five feet higher up stream.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Harry. “I ought to have remembered that, for Macgregor speaks about it in one of his books.”
“Whereabouts did your canoe strike, Commodore?” inquired Charley.
“Oh, about midships.”
“And of course she swung round broadside to the current.”
“Didn’t she, though! If I’d jumped out of her on the side I intended to when she first struck she would have swung against my legs; but I remembered that you must always jump out of a canoe in a rapid on the side above her.”
“What do you mean by the side above her?” asked Tom.
“I mean that you must not jump out below her.”
“That’s as clear as anything could be,” said Joe. “Still, I’d like to know what you mean by ‘below her.’”
“There’s an upper end and a lower end to every rapid, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the side of the canoe toward the upper end of a rapid is what I call ‘above her.’ If you jump out on that side she can’t float against your legs and smash them.”
“Now, if you’ve got through with that question,” continued Charley, “I want to say that if the Commodore had put his stores and his ballast-bag in the stern of his canoe, so as to make her draw a good deal more water aft than she did forward, she would have struck aft of midships, and wouldn’t have swung around.”
“You’re right. That’s just what Macgregor recommends, but I forgot it. Boys, I hereby order every canoe to be loaded with all her ballast and cargo in the after compartment before we start to-morrow.”
“And I want to remind you fellows of one more thing,” said Charley. “When the current is sweeping you toward a concave shore—that is, where the river makes a bend—don’t try to keep your canoe clear of the shore by hard paddling. Just backwater on the side of the canoe that is toward the middle of the river.”
“That’s Macgregor again!” cried Harry; “but I’d forgotten it. To-morrow we’ll run our rapids in real scientific style.”
“Provided there are any more rapids,” suggested Tom.
“What did that Sherbrooke postmaster say about the Magog rapids?” inquired Joe.
“Said there weren’t any, except one or two which we could easily run,” replied Harry.
“Then we’ve probably got through with the rapids,” said Charley. “I’m rather sorry, for it’s good fun running them.”
Supper was now over, and the canoeists, spreading their rubber blankets on the sawdust, prepared to “turn in.” They were in a wild and beautiful spot. The great “Rock Forest,” as it is called, through which the Magog runs, is of vast extent, and is inhabited by bears and smaller wild animals. The boys from their camping-ground could see nothing but the river, the dense woods on either bank, and the bright moonlit sky above them. The rapid was roaring as if it was angry at having failed to wreck the canoes, and the only other sound was the crackling of branches in the forest, and the occasional sighing of the gentle breeze. The boys were tired, and, lulled by the sound of the rapids, soon dropped asleep.
The recent rains had dampened the sawdust to the depth of about two inches, but below this depth it was dry and inflammable. A small fire had been made with which to cook supper, and the dampness of the sawdust had made the boys so confident that the fire would not spread, that they had not taken the trouble to put it out before going to sleep.
Now, it happened that the damp sawdust on which the fire had been kindled gradually became dry, and finally took fire. It burnt very slowly on the surface, but the dry sawdust immediately below burnt like tinder. About two hours after Harry had closed his eyes he was awakened from a dream that he had upset a burning spirit-lamp over his legs. To his horror he saw that the whole bank of sawdust was on fire. Smoke was everywhere creeping up through the damp top layer, and at a little distance from the canoes the smouldering fire had burst into roaring flames.
Harry instantly called his comrades, and starting up they rushed to the canoes, threw their blankets and stores into them, and prepared to launch them. They had not a moment to spare. The flames were close to them, and were spreading every moment, and as they shoved the canoes toward the water their feet repeatedly sunk down through the ashes below the surface, the flames springing up as they hurriedly drew their feet back. It did not take many minutes to get the canoes into the water and to embark, but as the canoeists pushed out into the river the part of the bank where they had been sleeping burst into flames.
A light breeze had sprung up which was just enough to fan the fire and to carry it into an immense pile of dry drift-wood that lay on the shore below the sawdust bank. The boys waited in the quiet eddy near the bank and watched the progress of the fire. It licked up the drift-wood in a very few moments, and then, roaring with exultation over the work it had done, it swept into the forest. In half an hour’s time a forest fire was burning which threatened to make a terrible destruction of timber, and the heat had grown so intense that the canoeists were compelled to drop down the stream to avoid it.
Canoeing at night is always a ticklish business, but on a swift river, full of rapids, as is the Magog, it is exceedingly dangerous. The fire lighted the way for the fleet for a short distance, but before a landing-place was reached a turn on the river shut out the light, and at the same time the noise of a rapid close at hand was heard.
“HE CAUGHT HOLD OF THE ROOT OF A TREE AND KEPT HIS CANOE STATIONARY.”
The boys had no desire to entangle themselves in unknown rapids in the dark, and paddled at once for the shore opposite to that where the fire was raging. They found when they reached it that it was a perpendicular bank on which it was impossible to land. They floated down a short distance, hoping to find a landing spot, but none could be found. Then they attempted to cross the stream to the other shore, hoping that the fire would not spread in that direction. To their dismay they found that they were already almost within the clutch of the rapid. The current had become strong and swift, and it was evident before they had got half-way across the river that nothing but the hardest paddling could keep them from being drawn into the rapid. It was an occasion when everybody had to look out for himself and depend on his own paddles for safety. The young canoeists struck out manfully. Harry was the first to reach the shore, where he caught hold of the root of a tree and kept his canoe stationary. Tom followed closely behind him, and Harry told him to catch hold of the Sunshine until he could make the Twilight’s painter fast to the root. Joe arrived a little later, for his canoe had run on a rock, and for a few minutes he was in great danger of a capsize.
The three canoeists succeeded in tying up to the bank, where they expected every moment to be joined by Charley. The minutes passed on, but Charley did not appear. His comrades shouted for him, but there was no answer. Indeed, the rapid made such a noise, now that they were close upon it, that they could not have heard Charley’s voice had he been a few yards from them.
The fear that an accident had happened to Charley made the other boys very uneasy. Joe cast his canoe loose and paddled out into the river and nearly across it, looking for some signs of the Midnight and her owner, but he came back unsuccessful, after having narrowly escaped being carried down the rapid. There could no longer be any doubt that the current had swept the Midnight away, and that Charley had been compelled to make the hazardous and almost hopeless attempt of running the rapid in the dark.
As soon as Joe returned Harry said that he would paddle out into the middle of the river where Charley was last seen, and would let his canoe drift down the rapid, but Tom and Joe insisted that he should do no such thing. Said Joe, “Either Charley is drowned or he isn’t. If he isn’t drowned he is somewhere at the foot of the rapid, where we’ll find him as soon as it gets light. If he is drowned it won’t do him any good for another of us to get drowned.”
“Joe is right,” said Tom. “We must stay here till daylight.”
“And meanwhile Charley may be drowned!” exclaimed Harry.
“I don’t believe he is,” replied Tom. “He’s the best canoeist of any of us, and he is too good a sailor to get frightened. Then, he is very cautious, and I’ll bet that the first thing he did when he found himself in the rapid was to buckle his life-belt round him.”
“If he did that it wouldn’t hurt him if he were capsized.”
“Not if the rapid is like those we’ve run, and the chances are that it is. I feel sure that Charley has got through it all right, and without losing his canoe. We’ll find him waiting for us in the morning.”
What Tom said seemed so reasonable that Harry gave up his wild idea of running the rapid, and agreed to wait until daylight. It was already nearly one o’clock, and at that time of year the day began to dawn by half-past three. There was no opportunity for the boys to sleep, but they occasionally nodded as they sat in their canoes. About two o’clock Harry poked Tom with his paddle, and in a low voice called his attention to the crackling of the twigs in the woods a short distance from the bank. Something was evidently making its way through the forest and coming nearer every minute to the canoes. The boys grasped their pistols and anxiously waited. They remembered that there were bears in the woods, and they fully believed that one was on its way down to the water. “Don’t fire,” whispered Harry, “till I give the word;” but while he was speaking a dark form parted the underbrush on the bank above them and came out into full view.