The Collected Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood
of the chasm beyond the main channel. These increased in number and size as the journey continued, until Mukoki began to feel the influence of their currents and called on Wabi and Rod for assistance. Suddenly Rod gave a muffled shout as they shot past a mass of huge boulders on their right.
"That's where I camped the night I dreamed of the skeletons!" he cried. "I don't know what the stream is like from here on. Be careful!"
Wabi gave a terrific lunge with his paddle and the cone of a black rock hissed past half a canoe length away.
"It's as black as a dungeon ahead, and I can hear rocks!" he shouted. "Bring her in if you can, Muky, bring her in!"
There came the sudden sharp crack of snapping wood and a low exclamation of alarm fell from Mukoki. His paddle had broken at the shaft. In a flash Rod realized what had happened and passed back his own, but that moment's loss of time proved almost fatal. Freed of its guiding hand the birch bark swung broadside to the current, and at the same time Wabi's voice rose in a shrill cry of warning.
"It's not rocks, it's a whirlpool!" he yelled. "The other shore, swing her out, swing her out!"
He dug his own paddle deep down into the racing current and from behind Mukoki exerted his most powerful efforts, but it was too late! A hundred feet ahead the stream tore between two huge rocks as big as houses, and just beyond these Rod caught a glimpse of frothing water churning itself milk-white in the moonlight. But it was only a glimpse. With a velocity that was startling the canoe shot between the rocks, and as a choking sea of spray leaped into their faces Wabigoon's voice came back again in a loud command for the others to hang to the gunwales of their frail craft. For an instant, in which his thoughts seemed to have left him, a roaring din filled Rod's ears; a white, churning mist hid everything but his own arms and clutching hands, and then the birch bark darted with the sudden impetus of a freshly-shot arrow around the jagged edge of the boulder—and he could see again.
Here was the whirlpool! More than once Wabi had told him of these treacherous traps, made by the mountain streams, and of the almost certain death that awaited the unlucky canoe man drawn into their smothering embrace. There was no angry raging of the flood here; at first it seemed to Rod that they were floating almost without motion upon a black, lazy sea that made neither sound nor riffle. Scarce half a dozen canoe lengths away he saw the white center of the maelstrom, and there came to his ears above the dash of the stream between the two great rocks a faint hissing sound that curdled the blood in his veins, the hissing of the treacherous undertow that would soon drag them to their death! In the passing of a thought there flashed into the white youth's mind a story that Mukoki had told him of an Indian who had been lost in one of these whirlpools of the spring floods, and whose body had been tossed and pitched about in its center for more than a week. For the first time the power of speech came to him.
"Shall we jump?" he shouted.
"Hang to the canoe."
Wabi fairly shrieked the words, and yet as he spoke he drew himself half erect, as if about to leap into the flood. The momentum gathered in its swift rush between the rocks had carried their frail craft almost to the outer edge of the deadly trap, and as this momentum ceased and the canoe yielded to the sucking forces of the maelstrom the young Indian shrieked out his warning again.
"Hang to the canoe!"
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he stood erect and launched himself like an animal into the black depths toward shore. With a terrified cry Rod rose to his knees. In another instant he would have plunged recklessly after Wabi, but Mukoki's voice sounding behind him, snarling in its fierceness, stopped him.
"Hang to canoe!"
There came a jerk. The bow of the canoe swung inward and the stern whirled so quickly that Rod, half kneeling, nearly lost his balance. In that instant he turned his face and saw the old warrior standing, as Wabigoon had done before him, and as Mukoki leaped there came for a third time that warning cry:
"Hang to canoe!"
And Rod hung. He knew that for some reason those commands were meant for him, and him alone; he knew that the desperate plunges of his comrades were not inspired by cowardice or fear, but not until the birch bark ground upon the shore and he tumbled out in safety did he fully comprehend what had happened. Holding the rope with which they tied their canoe, Wabigoon had taken a desperate chance. His quick mind had leaped like a flash of powder to their last hope, and at the crucial moment, just as the momentum of the birch bark gave way to the whirling forces of the pool, he had jumped a good seven feet toward shore, and had found bottom! Another twelve inches of water under him and all would have been lost.
Wabigoon stood panting and dripping wet, and in the moonlight his face was as white as the tub-like spot of foam out in the center of the maelstrom.
"That's what you call going to kingdomcome and getting out again!" he gasped. "Muky, that was the closest shave we've ever had! It has your avalanche beaten to a frazzle!"
Mukoki was dragging the canoe upon the pebbly shore, and still overcome by the suddenness of all that had happened Rod went to his assistance.
The adventurers now discovered themselves in a most interesting situation. The night had indeed been one of curious and thrilling happenings for them, and here was a pretty climax to it all! They had escaped the mad hunter by running into the almost fatal grip of the whirlpool, and now they had escaped the perils of that seething death-trap by plunging into a tiny rock-bound prison which seemed destined to hold them for all time, or at least until the floods of spring subsided. Straight above them, and shutting them in entirely, rose precipitous rock walls. On the only open side was the deadly maelstrom.
Even Mukoki as he glanced about him was struck by the humor of their situation, and chuckled softly.
Wabi stood with his hands deep in his soaked pockets, facing the moonlit walls. Then he turned to Rod, and grinned; then he faced the whirlpool, and after that his eyes swept the space of sky above them. The situation was funny, at first; but when he looked at the white youth again the smile had died out of his face.
"Wouldn't that madman have fun if he found us now!" he whispered.
Mukoki was traveling slowly around the rock walls. The space in which they were confined was not more than fifty feet in diameter, and there was not even a crack by means of which a squirrel might have found exit. The prison was perfect. The old pathfinder came back and sat down with a grunt.
"We might as well have supper and a good sleep," suggested Rod, who was hungry. "Surely we need fear no attack from beast or man to-night!"
At least there was this consolation, and the gold hunters ate a hearty meal of cold bear meat and prepared for slumber. The night was unusually warm, and both Mukoki and Wabigoon hung out their wet clothes to dry while they slept in their blankets. Rod did not open his eyes again until Wabi awakened him in the morning. Both Indians were dressed and it was evident that they had been up for some time. When Rod went to the water to wash himself he was surprised to find all of their supplies repacked in the canoe, as though their journey was about to be resumed immediately after breakfast, and when he returned to where Mukoki and Wabigoon had placed their food on a flat stone in the center of what he had regarded as their prison, he observed that both of his companions were in an unusually cheerful frame of mind.
"Looks as though you expected to get out of here pretty soon," he said, nodding toward the canoe.
"So we do!" responded Wabi. "We're going to take a swim through the whirlpool!"
He laughed at the incredulity in Rod's face.
"That is, we're going to navigate along the edge of it," he amended. "Muky and I have tied together every bit of rope and strap in our outfit, even to our gun-slings, and we've got a piece about eighty feet long. We'll show you how to use it after breakfast."
It took but a few minutes to dispose of the rather unappetizing repast of cold bear meat, biscuits and water. Wabi then led the way to the extreme edge of the great rock which formed the eastern wall of their prison, waded in the water to his knees, and directed Rod's gaze to a point of land jutting out into the stream about sixty feet beyond