On either side fir forests
crowded to the rocky edges, that broke like cruel granite jaws against
the waters. Immediately ahead the stream twisted into circles, those
smooth, deadly circles that herald the coming tumult. Bob's strong
young arms grew taut, their sinews like thin cords of steel. There was
not a tremor in his entire body. He knelt, steady and calm, his keen,
narrow eyes fixed plumb ahead, alert and shrewd as an animal. He felt
his fingers grip the paddle with a strength that was vise-like, grip,
and cling, and command. The canoe obeyed even his thought, obeyed the
turn of his smallest finger, obeyed, steadied itself, stood motionless
for a second, then lifted its nose and plunged forward. The spray split
in two, showering the gunwales, then roared abaft, and--they were in the
thick of the fight.
"Do you want me to paddle?" shouted back Lord Dunbridge.
"No, I can pilot her all right," came the response through the wind
that almost shrieked Bob's voice away. The rocky ledges of shores were
crowding closer now. The firs, dark and melancholy, were frowning down;
sharp crags arose like ragged teeth; to right, to left, ahead, and
between them the river boiled and lashed itself into fury, pitching
headlong on and on down the throat of the yawning channel.
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