She knelt, her strong, slim brown
arms bared to the shoulder, her hair blown about her forehead, her daring
eyes flashing to left and right, memory of her course at work under such
a strain as few can endure without chaos of mind in the end. A hundred
times since the day she had run these Rapids with Tekewani, she had gone
over the course in her mind, asleep and awake, forcing her brain to see
again every yard of that watery way; because she knew that the day must
come when she would make the journey alone. Why she would make it she did
not know; she only knew that she would do it some day; and the day had
come. For long it had been an obsession with her--as though some spirit
whispered in her ear--"Do you hear the bells ringing at Carillon? Do you
hear the river singing towards Carillon? Do you see the wild birds flying
towards Carillon? Do you hear the Rapids calling--the Rapids of
Carillon?"
Night and day since she had braved death with Tekewani, giving him a gun,
a meerschaum pipe, and ten pounds of beautiful brown "plug" tobacco as a
token of her gratitude--night and day she had heard this spirit murmuring
in her ear, and always the refrain was, "Down the stream to Carillon!
Shoot the Rapids of Carillon!"
Why? How should she know? Wherefore should she know? This was of the
things beyond the why of the human mind.
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