Canoe Mates in Canada; Or, Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan

Kneeling in a "bullboat," fashioned from the skin of an animal, and wielding a paddle with the dexterity only to be attained after years of practice in canoeing, a sturdily-built and thoroughly bronzed Canadian lad glanced ever and anon back along the course over which he had so recently passed; and then up at the black storm clouds hurrying out of the mysterious North.

It was far away in the wilderness of the Northwest, where this fierce tributary of the great Saskatchewan came pouring down from the timber-clad hills; and all around the lone voyager lay some of the wildest scenery to be met with on the whole continent.

Here and there in this vast territory one might come across the occasional trading posts of the wide-reaching Hudson Bay Company, at each of which the resident factor ruled with the arbitrary power of a little czar.

It might be he would discover the fire of some Ishmaelite of the forest, a wandering "timber-cruiser," marking out new and promising fields for those he served, and surveying the scene of possible future bustling logging camps.

Otherwise the country at this time was a vast unknown land, seldom penetrated by human kind, save the Indian fur gatherers.

Considering that he was in so vast a wilderness this adventurous lad appeared to have scant luggage in his well battered bullboat-indeed, beyond the buskskin jacket, which he had thrown off because of his exertions, there did not seem to be anything at all aboard the craft, not even a gun, by means of which he might provide himself with food while on the journey downstream.

This singular fact would seem to indicate that he might have had trouble of some sort back yonder.

Indeed, the occasional glances which he cast over his shoulder added strength to this possibility; though the look upon his strong face was more in the line of chagrin and anger than fear.

Now and then he shook his curly head, and muttered something; and once a name passed his lips in anything but a friendly fashion-that of Alexander Gregory.

Swifter grew the current, giving plain warning to one so well versed as this lad must be in the vagaries of these mad rivers of the Silent Land that presently it would be racing furiously down a steep incline, with razoredge rocks on every side, apparently only too eager to rend asunder the frail canoe of the adventurous cruiser.

Still Owen Dugdale continued to ply the nimble paddle, weaving it in and out like a shuttle.

He kept to the middle of the river when it would seem to at least have been the part of wisdom had he edged his craft closer to either shore, so that he might, in time, make a safe landing in preference to trusting himself to the mercy of the wild rapids, in which his frail bullboat would be but as a chip in the swirl of conflicting waters.

Already had the vanguard of the storm swept down upon him.

An inky pall began to shut out the daylight, and when a sudden flash of lightning cleft the low-hanging clouds overhead the effect was perfectly staggering.

The roar of thunder that followed quick upon its heels was like the explosion of a twelve-inch gun as heard in the steel-jacketed turret of a modern battleship.

Again and again was the rushing river, with its grim forest-clad shores lighted up by the rapid-fire electric flashes.

All around crashed the loud-toned thunderclaps, rumbling and roaring until the whole affair became a perfect pandemonium; and brave indeed must be the soul that could gaze upon it without dismay and flinching.

It was just then, before the rain had begun to descend, and while the artillery of heaven flashed and roared with all the fury of a Gettysburg, that Owen Dugdale found himself plunging into the dangerous rapids, ten times more to be feared under such conditions than ordinary.

Possibly he may have regretted his rashness in sticking to the middle of the channel until it was too late to change his course; but apparently the solitary young Canuck was at the time in somewhat of a desperate frame of mind, and recked little what might be the result of his mad act of defiance to the combined powers of tempest and boiling rapids.

At least he showed no signs of shrinking from the consequences.

Beyond shifting his weight a trifle, as if to settle himself better for the desperate work that faced him, he remained just as before, on his knees.

Crouching amidships, lie held his paddle poised as if ready to thrust it into the swirling water at a second's notice, to stay the progress of the canoe as it lunged toward a threatening rock, or glided too near a roaring whirlpool, where disaster was certain to follow.

Owen Dugdale was no novice at shooting rapids, though never before could he have undertaken such a fierce fight as the one in which he was now engaged, for the combination of the elements made it simply appalling.

The stirring scene might have appealed to the instinct of an artist; but so far as the lad was concerned he had only eyes for the perils with which he was surrounded, and his whole soul seemed wrapped up in the prompt meeting of each emergency as it flashed before him.

A dozen times he would have met with sudden disaster but for the instantaneous manner in which his hand followed the promptings of his brain.

Even then it was a mighty close shave more than once, for the boat rubbed up against several snags in whirling past, any one of which would have sunk the frail craft had it been a head-on collision.

Once he had to paddle like a madman to keep from being sucked into the largest whirlpool along the course; which seemed to reach out eager fingers, and strive to the utmost to engulf him in its gluttonous maw.

Thanks to the almost incessant lightning, Owen was enabled to see these perils in time to take action, else he must have been speedily overwhelmed in the fury of the rushing waters.

While the time might have seemed an eternity to the brave lad who battled for his very life, in reality it could not have been more than a couple of minutes at most that he was shooting down that foamy descent, dodging hither and thither as the caprice of the rapids or the impetus of his paddle dictated.

Just below him was the finish of the dangerous fall, and as so often happens, the very last lap proved to be more heavily charged with disaster than any of those above, even though they appeared to be far worse.

Being a son of the wilderness, Owen Dugdale had probably never heard of the kindred terrors that used to lie in wait for the bold mariners of ancient Greece-the rock and the whirlpool known as Scylla and Charybdis-if they missed being impaled upon the one they were apt to be engulfed in the other-and yet here in the rapids of this furious Saskatchewan feeder he was brought face to face with a proposition exactly similar to that of mythology.

He strove valiantly to meet the occasion, and his sturdy sweep of the paddle did send him away from the ugly pointed rock; but the last whirlpool was so close that he was not enabled to fully recover in time to throw his whole power into the second stroke; consequently his canoe was caught in the outer edge of the swirl, and before one could even wink twice it capsized.

This was not the first time Owen had met with such a disaster while shooting rapids and he had his wits about him for all of the confusion that surrounded him there.

His very first act was to clutch hold of the canoe, and throw all his energies into the task of avoiding the deadly suction of the whirlpool, for once he fell into its grip there must be only a question of seconds ere he reached its vortex and went under.

Fortune, aided by his own violent efforts, favored him, and as a result he managed to swim down the balance of the rapid, and reach the smoother waters below, still hanging on with a desperate clutch to his poor old boat, while his other hand gripped the paddle.

The canoe was full of water, but it did not sink, being buoyant enough to keep on the surface; but Owen found it as much as he could do to push the unwieldly thing along when he began to make for the nearest shore.

Exciting as this adventure had been, it was only an episode in a life such as he had spent up in this vast region, where the first lesson a boy learns is to take care of himself, and meet peril in any guise.

There was not the least doubt with regard to his ability to gain the nearby shore with his wrecked canoe, even if left to himself.

Nevertheless, when his ears caught the sound of encouraging shouts, and he realized that his perilous descent of the rapids had been witnessed by sympathetic eyes, it gave Mm a thrill to know that friends were near by, and waiting to assist him, if such were necessary.

But young Dugdale was an independent lad, accustomed to relying altogether upon his own endeavors, as one must always do whose life is spent in the heart of the Great Lone Land of the Far Northwest.

Hence, he kept on swimming with his boat until he could wade, and in this way came out of the river dripping, temporarily held in check by his misfortune, but not in the least dismayed.

Two figures hurried to meet him, though they arrived too late to give him a helping hand in effecting a landing.

Owen looked at them in amazement-he had at the most anticipated that those whose encouraging shouts had reached his ears while in the water must be some timber-cruisers who chanced to be camping at the foot of the rapids for the fishing to be found there; or it might be several of the halfbreed voyageurs employed by the Hudson Bay Company to carry furs from far distant posts to some station on the railroad; but he found himself gazing upon neither.

Two boys confronted him, neither of them much older than himself, and utter strangers at that.

Owen had never had a chum; and indeed, his life had been a lonely one, burdened by responsibilities that had made him much older than his years-his scanty associations had been with hardy lumbermen or voyageurs, so that the presence of this twain struck him as the most mysterious and remarkable thing in all his experience.

And they seemed so solicitous concerning his welfare, insisting upon taking hold of the boat and pulling the same clear of the water, that he almost began to fancy he must be dreaming.

"Now," exclaimed the taller of the two, when this job had been finished, "come right up to our tent, where we have a bully fire that will dry you off in a jiffy. And our coffee is just ready, too-I rather guess that'll warm you up some. Eli, it's lucky you made an extra supply, after all. Looks as if you expected we'd have company drop in on us. I'll carry the paddle-good you hung on to it, for it's a tough job to whittle one out, I know. Here we are, old chap, and believe me, you're a thousand times welcome!"

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