The depth was nearly as great as in the middle of the stream. He tried to catch hold of the stony bottom, but it glided so swiftly from his grasp that he felt the pain of the friction. The slight reaction sent him upward again, and he struggled fiercely to reach shore. He had about the same distance to travel as the stag, but the latter was a rod further down stream.
The youth strove as only one can who is striving for his life, but he was closer to the falls than he was to land, and he quickly saw that nothing could save him from going over. To struggle longer could only exhaust his strength without giving him any advantage. With great coolness, he turned to the left, so as to face the falls, and braced himself for the ordeal.
“I have never heard whether any one can go over them and live to tell of it, but the question will be settled in the next two minutes.”
The river where it poured over the rocks was compressed into a volume less than a hundred feet in width. The mass of water was ten feet in depth, and the descent was three times as great. The narrowing of the stream gave it great velocity, and the churning of the enormous mass at the base sent up continual clouds of mist, which, when penetrated by the sun’s rays, showed a beautiful rainbow.
At the point where Jud put out in a boat, it was safe to paddle across, but he had been so absorbed in his hunt for the stag, that he forgot all about the falls until it was too late to extricate himself.
Curious thoughts often come to a person when in such extremity. Jud saw the dugout bobbing up and down like the cork of a fishing line, until it vanished from sight. He wondered how many times it would turn over, and whether it was possible for it to keep upright, and in case it was not capsized what would become of his fine rifle? If that were saved, into whose hands would it fall? What did the stag think of the situation, and did he appreciate what zanies he and Jud had made of themselves in their eagerness to destroy each other? How delicately beautiful was the faint rainbow spanning the mist! Would his father and mother understand the means by which he had lost his life? He was their only child, and the pang of sorrow which pierced his heart was because he knew they would never recover from their grief over his loss.
