The Winds of Chance Part 22

Royal's jaw dropped. "The devil you say!" he exclaimed.

"I don't want de job--your scow's no good--but I toss a coin wit'

you. One t'ousan' dollar or--free trip."

"Nothing doing," snapped the ex-horseman.

"Bien! Now I give you li'l AD-vice. Hol' hard to de right in lower end dis canon. Dere's beeg rock dere. Don't touch 'im or you goin'

spin lak' top an' mebbe you go over W'ite 'Orse sideways. Dat's goin' smash you, sure."

Royal broke out, peevishly: "Another hot tip, eh? Everybody's got some feed-box information--especially the ones you don't hire.

Well, I ain't scared--"

"Oh yes, you are!" said the other man. "Everybody is scare' of dis place."

"Anyhow, I ain't scared a thousand dollars' worth. Takes a lot to scare me that much. I bet this place is as safe as a chapel and I bet our scow goes through with her tail up. Let her b.u.mp; she'll finish with me on her back and all her weights. I built her and I named her."

Danny watched the pilot as he swung down to the stony sh.o.r.e and rejoined Pierce Phillips; then he looked on in fascination while they removed their outer garments, stepped into a boat with Kid Bridges, and rowed away into the gorge.

"It's--got my goat!" muttered the little jockey.

CHAPTER XI

Although scows larger than the Rouletta had run Miles Canon and the rapids below in safety, perhaps none more unwieldy had ever done so. Royal had built his barge stoutly, to be sure, but of other virtues the craft had none. When loaded she was so clumsy, so obstinate, so headstrong that it required unceasing effort to hold her on a course; as for rowing her, it was almost impossible.

She took the first swooping rush into the canon, strange to say, in very good form, and thereafter, by dint of herculean efforts, Royal and his three men managed to hold her head down-stream.

Sweeping between the palisades, she galloped clumsily onward, wallowing like a hippopotamus. Her long pine sweeps, balanced and bored to receive thick thole-pins, rose and fell like the stiff legs of some fat, square-bodied spider; she reared her bluff bow; then she dove, shrouding herself in spray.

It was a journey to terrify experienced rivermen; doubly terrifying was it to Royal and Kirby, who knew nothing whatever of swift water and to whom its perils were magnified a thousandfold.

In spite of his apprehension, which by now had quickened into panic, Danny rose to the occasion with real credit. His face was like paper, his eyes were wide and strained; nevertheless, he kept his gaze fixed upon the pilot and strove to obey the latter's directions implicitly. Now with all his strength he heaved upon his sweep; now he backed water violently; at no time did he trust himself to look at the cliffs which were scudding past, nor to contemplate the tortuous turns in the gorge ahead. That would have been too much for him. Even when his clumsy oar all but grazed a bastion, or when a jagged promontory seemed about to smash his craft, he refused to cease his frantic labors or to more than lift his eyes. He saw that Rouletta Kirby was very pale, and he tried to shout a word of encouragement to her, but his cry was thin and feeble, and it failed to pierce the thunder of the waters. Danny hoped the girl was not as frightened as he, nor as old Sam--the little man would not have wished such a punishment upon his worst enemy.

Kirby, by reason of his disability, of course, was prevented from lending any active help with the boat and was forced to play a purely pa.s.sive part. That it was not to his liking any one could have seen, for, once the moorings were slipped, he did not open his lips; he merely stood beside Rouletta, with the fingers of his right hand sunk into her shoulder, his gray face grayer than ever.

Together they swayed as the deck beneath them reeled and pitched.

"Look! We're nearly through!" the girl cried in his ear, after what seemed an interminable time.

Kirby nodded. Ahead he could see the end of the canon and what appeared to be freer water; out into this open s.p.a.ce the torrent flung itself. The scow was riding the bore, that ridge of water upthrust by reason of the pressure from above; between it and the exit from the chute was a rapidly dwindling expanse of tossing waves. Kirby was greatly relieved, but he could not understand why those rollers at the mouth of the gorge should rear themselves so high and should foam so savagely.

The bluffs ended, the narrow throat vomited the river out, and the scow galloped from shadow into pale sunlight.

The owner of the outfit drew a deep breath, his clutching fingers relaxed their nervous hold. He saw that Danny was trying to make himself heard and he leaned forward to catch the fellow's words, when suddenly the impossible happened. The deck beneath his feet was jerked backward and he was flung to his knees. Simultaneously there came a crash, the sound of rending, splintering wood, and over the stern of the barge poured an icy deluge that all but swept father and daughter away. Rouletta screamed, then she called the name of Royal.

"Danny! Danny!" she cried, for both she and old Sam had seen a terrible thing.

The blade of Royal's sweep had been submerged at the instant of the collision and, as a consequence, the force of that rus.h.i.+ng current had borne it forward, catapulting the man on the other end overboard as cleanly, as easily as a school-boy snaps a paper pellet from the end of a pencil. Before their very eyes the Kirbys saw their lieutenant, their lifelong friend and servitor, picked up and hurled into the flood.

"Danny!" shrieked the girl. The voice of the rapids had changed its tone now, for a cataract was drumming upon the after-deck and there was a cras.h.i.+ng and a smas.h.i.+ng as the piles of boxes came tumbling down. The scow drove higher upon the reef, its bow rose until it stood at a sharp incline, and meanwhile wave after wave cut like a broach over the stern, which steadily sank deeper. Then the deck tilted drunkenly and an avalanche of case-goods was spilled over the side.

Sam Kirby found himself knee-deep in ice water; a roller came curling down upon him, but with a frantic clutch he laid hold of his daughter. He sank the steel hook that did service as a left hand into a pile of freight and hung on, battling to maintain his footing. With a great jarring and jolting the Rouletta rose from the deluge, hung balanced for a moment or two, and then, relieved of a portion of her cargo, righted herself and swung broadside to the stream as if upon a pivot; finally she was carried free.

Onward she swept, turning end for end, pounding, staggering, as other rocks from below bit into her bottom.

The river was very low at this season, and the Rouletta, riding deep because half filled, found obstacles she would otherwise have cleared. She was out of the crooked channel now and it was impossible to manage her, so in a crazy succession of loops and swoops she gyrated down toward that tossing mane of spray that marked the White Horse.

With eyes of terror Sam Kirby scanned the boiling expanse through which the barge was drifting, but nowhere could he catch sight of Danny Royal. He turned to shout to his pilot, only to discover that he also was missing and that the steering-sweep was smashed.

"G.o.d! HE'S gone!" cried the old man. It was true; that inundation succeeding the mishap had swept the after-deck clean, and now the scow was not only rudderless, but it lacked a man of experience to direct its course.

Rouletta Kirby was tugging at her father's arm. She lifted a white, horrified face to his and exclaimed: "Danny! I saw him-- go!"

Her father's dead face was twitching; he nodded silently. Then he pointed at the cataract toward which they were being carried. He opened his lips to say something, but one of the crew came running back, shouting hoa.r.s.ely and waving his arms.

"We're going over," the fellow clamored. "We'll all be drowned!"

Kirby felled him with a blow from his artificial hand; then, when the man scrambled to his feet, his employer ordered:

"Get busy! Do what you can!"

For himself, he took Royal's sweep and struggled with it. But he was woefully ignorant of how to apply his strength and had only the faintest idea what he ought to do.

Meanwhile the thunder of the White Horse steadily increased.

Having brought the last of the Courteau boats through the canon, 'Poleon Doret piloted the little flotilla across to the town of White Horse and there collected his money, while Pierce Phillips and the other men pitched camp.

The labor of making things comfortable for the night did not prevent Lucky Broad from discussing at some length the exciting incidents of the afternoon.

"I hope her Highness got an eyeful of me shooting the chutes,"

said he, "for that's my farewell trip--positively my last appearance in any water act."

"Mighty decent of you and the Kid to volunteer," Pierce told him.

"It sure was," the other agreed. "Takes a coupla daredevils like him and me to pull that kind of a bonehead play."

Mr. Bridges, who was within hearing distance, shrugged with an a.s.sumption of careless indifference. "It takes more 'n a little lather to scare me," he boasted. "I'm a divin' Venus and I ate it up!"

"You--liar!" Lucky cried. "Why, every quill on your head was standing up and you look five years older 'n you did this morning!

You heard the undertaker shaking out your shroud all the way down- -you know you did. I never seen a man as scared as you was!" When Bridges accepted the accusation with a grin, the speaker ran on, in a less resentful tone: "I don't mind saying it hardened my arteries some. It made me think of all my sins and follies; I remembered all the bets I'd overlooked. Recollect that pioneer we laid for four hundred at Dyea?"

The Kid nodded. "Sure! I remember him easy. He squawked so loud you gave him back half of it."

"And all the time he had a thousand sewed in his s.h.i.+rt! Wasted opportunities like that lay heavy on a man when he hears the angels tuning up and smells the calla-lilies."

Bridges agreed in all seriousness, and went on to say: "Lucky, if I gotta get out of this country the way I got into it I'm going to let you bury me in Dawson. Look at them rapids ahead of us! Why, the guy that laid out this river was off his nut!"

"You're talking sense. We'll stick till they build a railroad up to us or else we'll let 'em pin a pair of soft-pine overcoats on the two of us. The idea of us calling ourselves wiseacres and doing circus stunts like this! We're suckers! We'll be working in the mines next. I bet I'll see you poulticed onto a pick-handle before we get out."