While Jacques was thus descanting philosophically on his experience in time past, they had approached the head of the second rapid, and in accordance with the principles just enunciated, the stout backwoodsman gave his undivided attention to the work before him. The rapid was short and deep, so that little care was required in descending it, excepting at one point, where the stream rushed impetuously between two rocks about six yards asunder. Here it was requisite to keep the canoe as much in the middle of the stream as possible.
Just as they began to feel the drag of the water, Redfeather was heard to shout in a loud warning tone, which caused Jacques and Charley to back their paddles hurriedly.
“What can the Injin mean, I wonder?” said Jacques, in a perplexed tone. “He don’t look like a man that would stop us at the top of a strong rapid for nothin’.”
“It’s too late to do that now, whatever is his reason,” said Charley, as he and his companion struggled in vain to paddle up stream.
“It’s no use, Mr. Charles; we must run it now—the current’s too strong to make head against; besides, I do think the man has only seen a bear, or something o’ that sort, for I see he’s ashore, and jumpin’ among the bushes like a cariboo.”
Saying this, they turned the canoe’s head down stream again, and allowed it to drift, merely retarding its progress a little with the paddles.
Suddenly Jacques uttered a sharp exclamation. “_Mon Dieu!_” said he, “it’s plain enough now. Look there!”
Jacques pointed as he spoke to the narrows to which they were now approaching with tremendous speed, which increased every instant. A heavy tree lay directly across the stream, reaching from rock to rock, and placed in such a way that it was impossible for a canoe to descend without being dashed in pieces against it. This was the more curious that no trees grew in the immediate vicinity, so that this one must have been designedly conveyed there.
“There has been foul work here,” said Jacques, in a deep tone. “We must dive, Mr. Charles; there’s no chance any way else, and _that’s_ but a poor one.”
This was true. The rocks on each side rose almost perpendicularly out of the water, so that it was utterly impossible to run ashore, and the only way of escape, as Jacques said, was by diving under the tree, a thing involving great risk, as the stream immediately below was broken by rocks, against which it dashed in foam, and through which the chances of steering one’s way in safety by means of swimming were very slender indeed.