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 passive 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 space 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 rushing 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.