The paddle lay inert
in her fingers, her head drooped. She slowly raised her head once, twice,
as though the call of the exhausted will was heard, but suddenly it fell
heavily upon her breast. For a moment so, and then as the canoe shot
forward on a fresh current, the lithe body sank backwards in the canoe,
and lay face upward to the evening sky.
The canoe sped on, but presently it swung round and lay athwart the
current, dipping and rolling.
From the banks on either side, the Indians of the Manitou Reservation and
the two men from Lebanon called out and hastened on, for they saw that
the girl had collapsed, and they knew only too well that her danger was
not yet past. The canoe might strike against the piers of the bridge at
Carillon and overturn, or it might be carried to the second cataract
below the town. They were too far away to save her, but they kept
shouting as they ran.
None responded to their call, but that defiance of the last cataract of
the Rapids of Carillon had been seen by one who, below an eddy on the
Lebanon side of the river, was steadily stringing upon maple-twigs black
bass and long-nosed pike. As he sat in the shade of the trees, he had
seen the plunge of the canoe into the chasm, and had held his breath in
wonder and admiration.
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