The boat had shudders. Every spasm jerked it onward a little faster. It flew with a tremulous speed which was terrible. Thurstane, a good soldier, able to obey as well as to direct, knowing that if Glover could not steer wisely no one could, sat, paddle in hand, awaiting orders. Sweeny fidgeted, looked from one to another, looked at the mist ahead, cringed, wanted to speak, and said nothing. Glover, working hard with his paddle, and just barely keeping the coracle bows on, peered and grinned as if he were facing a hurricane. There was no time to have a care for sunken bowlders, reaching up to rend the thin bottom. The one giant danger of the cataract was enough to fill the mind and bar out every minor terror. Its deafening threats demanded the whole of the imagination. Compared with the probability of plunging down an unknown depth into a boiling hell of waters, all other peril seemed too trifling to attract notice. Such a fate is an enhancement of the horrors of death. "Liftinant, let's go over with a whoop," called Sweeny. "It's much aisier." "Keep quiet, my lad," replied the officer. "We must hear orders." "All right, Liftinant," said Sweeny, relieved by having spoken. At this moment Glover shouted cheerfully, "We ain't dead yit There's a ledge." "I see it," nodded Thurstane. "Where there's a ledge there's an eddy," screamed Glover, raising his voice to pierce the hiss of the rapid and the roar of the cascade. Below them, jutting out from the precipitous northern bank, was a low bar of rock over which the river did not sweep. It was the remnant of a once lofty barrier; the waters had, as it were, gnawed it to the bone, but they had not destroyed it. In two minutes the voyagers were beside it, paddling with all their strength against the eddy which whirled along its edge toward the cataract, and tossing over the short, spiteful ripples raised by the sudden turn of the current. With a "Hooroo!" Sweeny tumbled ashore, lariat in hand, and struck his army shoes into the crevices of the shattered sandstone. In five minutes more the boat was unloaded and lifted upon the ledge. The travellers did not go to look at the cataract; their immediate and urgent need was to get by it. Making up their bundles as usual, they commenced a struggle with the intricacies and obstacles of the portage. The eroded, disintegrated plateau descended to the river in a huge confusion of ruin, and they had to pick their way for miles through a labyrinth of cliffs, needles, towers, and bowlders. Reaching the river once more, they found themselves upon a little plain of moderately fertile earth, the first plain and the first earth which they had seen since entering the cañon. The cataract was invisible; a rock cathedral several hundred feet high hid it; they could scarcely discern its lofty ghost of spray.