Dick clung to the side of the canoe as the water washed over him. For an instant Sandy disappeared, then Dick saw him come up, also clinging to the canoe, which had not entirely turned over, but had shipped so much water that it was sinking.
Presently, canoe and swimmers were whipped into a deep pool below the falls, and Dick and Sandy began desperately flinging water out of their craft. A little later they crawled back into their canoe, wet as half drowned rats, and Dick pushed off into the center of the stream.
The worst was over. Below the falls the gorge widened out slowly and the current grew more sluggish. For a quarter of an hour they glided on silently without need of their paddles, except to keep the craft in the center of the stream.
“Whew! I hope we don’t run into any more rapids,” Sandy breathed more freely.
Dick emphatically agreed. “Next time,” said he, “I’ll prefer facing the bullets, I think. Gee, if the fellows back in the U. S. A. knew what we’d just gone through they’d have a fit.”
“They’ll never believe it,” Sandy opined.
“We’ll make ’em believe it if we live to tell it,” vowed Dick, pulling extra hard on his paddle and making the canoe leap forward like a live thing. “But, to change the subject, I guess we left the enemy behind this time.”
“I’ll say so,” Sandy came back, “but two duckings in two days isn’t fair. Where can I stop off and get dry?”
“I think we’d better keep moving till noon,” Dick advised. “Then we can kill two birds with one stone—eat and dry off too.”
Sandy saw the wisdom of this and fell silent, bending his energies to the paddle. They made good time until about noon, when they espied a sandy shoal ahead of them that promised plenty of dry firewood for a campfire. They drew in, beached the canoe and made camp. An hour later, dry again and in good spirits, they pushed off and went on down the river.
“Seems as if I smell burning wood in the air,” Dick remarked a couple of miles further on.
“I do too,” Sandy replied, “——must be a forest fire somewhere near.”
“Hope it’s not too near,” said Dick, “a forest fire would hold us up a while even if we are on the river. I’ve heard my father tell about the fires they used to have in Oregon. They’re no joke.”