The rear
fastening held however and the boat was thrown in against the bank.
But Ed had disappeared in the fearful flood of rushing white water.
The other three stood appalled. It seemed to them that no power on
earth could save him. He must certainly be dashed to death upon the
rocks or smothered beneath the onrushing foam.
For a moment all were inert, paralyzed. Then Dick, accustomed to act
quickly in every emergency, slung the line around a boulder, took a
half hitch to secure it and, without stopping to see whether it would
hold or not, ran down stream at top speed with Bob and Bill at his
heels.
V
THE TRAILS ARE REACHED
Ed had been cast away in rapids before, and when he found himself in
the water, with the wilderness traveller's quick appreciation of the
conditions, he lay limp, without a struggle. If he permitted the
current to carry him in its own way on its course, he might be swept
past the rocks uninjured to the still water below. If one struggle was
made it might throw him out of the current's course against a boulder,
where he would be pounded to death or rendered unconscious and surely
drowned. He was swept on much more rapidly than his companions could
run and quite hidden from them by the big foam-crested waves.
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