One By One We Met The Hard
Rapids In Various Ways, Mostly By Portaging, But On The Morning
Of The 19th We Came To One So Small And Short That All Agreed The
Canoe Could Be Forced By With Poles And Track-Line.
It looked an
insignificant ripple, no more than a fish might make with its tail,
and what happened in going up, is recorded as follows:
CHAPTER XLV
THE RIVER SHOWS ITS TEETH
"Oct. 20, 1907. - Athabaska River. In the Canyon. This has been
a day of horrors and mercies. We left the camp early, 6.55 - long
before sunrise, and portaged the first rapid. About 9 we came to
the middle rapid; this Billy thought we could track up, so with
two ropes he and Rob were hauling us, I in bow, Preble in stem;
but the strong waters of the middle part whirled the canoe around
suddenly, and dashed her on a rock. There was a crash of breaking
timber, a roar of the flood, and in a moment Preble and I and, all
the stuff were in the water.
"'My journals,' I shouted as I went down, and all the time the
flood was boiling in my ears my thought was, 'My journals,' - 'my
journals.'
"The moment my mouth was up again above the water, I bubbled out,
'My journals, - save my journals,' then struck out for the shore.
Now I saw Preble hanging on to the canoe and trying to right it.
His face was calm and unchanged as when setting a mousetrap.
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