The current, moreover, increased in strength by the sudden swelling of the waters, dashed furiously down, giving its direction to the leaping billows that rode impatiently upon its surface; and at the point of intersection by the island of Bois Blanc, formed so violent an eddy within twenty feet of the land, as to produce the effect of a whirlpool, while again, between the island and the Canadian shore, the current, always rapid and of great force, flew boiling down its channel, and with a violence almost quadrupled.

Amid this uproar of the usually placid river, there was but one bark found bold enough to venture upon her angered bosom, and this, although but an epitome of those that have subdued the world of waters, and chained them in subservience to the will of man, now danced gallantly, almost terrifically, from billow to billow, and, with the feathery lightness of her peculiar class, seemed borne onward, less by the leaping waves themselves than by the white and driving spray that fringed their summits.  This bark—­a canoe evidently of the smallest description —­had been watched in its progress, from afar, by the groups assembled on the bank, who had gathered at each other’s call, to witness and marvel at the gallant daring of those who had committed it to the boiling element.  Two persons composed her crew—­the one, seated in the stern, and carefully guiding the bark so as to enable her to breast the threatening waves, which, in quick succession, rose as if to accomplish her overthrow—­the other, standing at her bows, the outline of his upper figure designed against the snow-white sail, and, with his arms folded across his chest, apparently gazing without fear on the danger which surrounded him.  It was evident, from their manner of conducting the bark, that the adventurers were not Indians, and yet there was nothing to indicate to what class of the white family they belonged.  Both were closely wrapped in short, dark coloured pea coats, and their heads were surmounted with glazed hats—­a species of costume that more than any thing else, proved their familiarity with the element whose brawling they appeared to brave with an indifference bordering on madness.

Such was the position of the parties, at the moment when Henry Grantham gained the bank.  Hitherto the canoe, in the broad reach that divided the island from the American mainland, had had merely the turbulence of the short heavy waves, and a comparatively modified current, to contend against.  Overwhelming even as these difficulties would have proved to men less gifted with the power of opposing and vanquishing them, they were but light in comparison with what remained to be overcome.  The canoe was now fast gaining the head of the island, and pursuing a direct course for the whirlpool already described.  The only means of avoiding this was by closely hugging the shore, between which and the violent eddy without, the water, broken in its impetuosity by the covering