[Illustration: "We went at a furious rate on that swirling, seething, boiling torrent."]
There was just one spot, about a mile down, where we could land those carts. If we missed that the current would sweep them to the other side of the river, and on into a series of rapids below. To jump into the canoe, to chase that raft, to hitch to it, and then to paddle for the shore as we went at a furious rate on that swirling, seething, boiling torrent was our instant action. How we worked! How I watched that one spot where it was possible for us to land! How I calculated the time when I would pay out line, and once more try to warp our raft in! How as by a miracle we did make the one spot, and held our raft, and, securing it, sat down on the shore and rested, and were thankful!
But our difficulties were not yet all mastered. At a glance I saw we had heavy work before us to take those carts out of the spot where we landed. A steep, almost perpendicular bank, covered with brush, must be climbed at the outset, and then a road of some two or three miles made in order to reach the spot where our goods were. Though I saw all this, yet as I lay there with the carts on the home side of the river at my feet, I felt profoundly thankful.
The first thing to be done was to take the carts out of the water and put them together, then, by wading and tracking and pulling and pushing, to take the heavy skin canoe up stream, and again cross, as our stock were still on the south side. Here came the tug of war, for those cattle were afraid of the wide stream and the strong current. We drove them up and started them in at the spot where the flow of water struck for the other side, but all in vain; they kept coming back on us. We shouted and waded in after them. Many times we gave them a fresh send-off. Finally we towed one over after the canoe, and rushed the balance in after this one, but they went back on us again. We took another, and still the rest would not follow; but we gave them no peace, and finally, after hours of the hardest kind of work, they struck out and swam across, some of them going a long distance down stream. Eventually all crossed, and at a late hour on Tuesday evening we were camped--goods and carts and stock and men--on the north side of the South Branch, and as yet no one drowned!