At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocks
jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thornton
poled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with the end in
his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge. This it did,
and was flying down-stream in a current as swift as a mill-race, when
Hans checked it with the rope and checked too suddenly. The boat
flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton,
flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of
the rapids, a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live.
Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred
yards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When he felt
him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his
splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress
down-stream amazingly rapid. From below came the fatal roaring where
the wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the
rocks which thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb. The suck
of the water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was
frightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He scraped
furiously over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a third with
crushing force. He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing
Buck, and above the roar of the churning water shouted: Go, Buck! Go!
Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, struggling
desperately, but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton s command
repeated, he partly reared out of the water, throwing his head high, as
though for a last look, then turned obediently toward the bank. He swam
powerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at the very point
where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction began.
They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock in the
face of that driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran as
fast as they could up the bank to a point far above where Thornton was
hanging on. They attached the line with which they had been snubbing
the boat to Buck s neck and shoulders, being careful that it should
neither strangle him nor impede his swimming, and launched him into the
stream. He struck out boldly, but not straight enough into the stream.
He discovered the mistake too late, when Thornton was abreast of him
and a bare half-dozen strokes away while he was being carried
57