There is a curious white fish, very tender and flaky, and sweet in the mouth, which gathers in schools in the big river just above where the swift current begins, and it came to me that I might go among them with tied lines and barbed hooks trailing from the boat, and so catch at least one or two of them. I wanted Thin Legs to go with me, but he declared it to be unsafe. If once the current got hold of the boat too strongly, he said, it would be carried down the river and over the falls and upon the jagged rocks where no man could live; but I only laughed at him, and said, since he feared, I would fish alone. I took my lines with me, with bait for the barbed hooks, and tied one end of the lines about my waist, letting the hooks float in the water far behind. When I heard the roar of the falls, I became afraid, and wished to turn the boat to row back with the floating hooks; but I found all at once that I had come too far. As I strove to turn, the fierce current caught the paddle, and exerted its strength against me. How could Thin Legs have chanced upon such treacherous wood? The paddle snapped short in the middle, and I was helpless with the fragment of the handle in my hand. The boat whirled round in the rushing waters. The falls roared more loudly. There were the jagged rocks below, and certain death there. I threw myself along the bottom of the tossing boat, lest it overturn even before the leap. But of what avail? There was only death below! I closed my eyes, and, with a roaring of the waters in my ears, shot downward toward the jagged rocks, and then came nothingness. CHAPTER VI THE SOWERS