The next day they came to the head of a long and furiously-running rapid. Rocks encumbered its channel; the stream boiled fiercely over sunken ledges, dropping several feet here and there in angry falls; and in one place, where the banks narrowed in, a white stretch of foaming waves ran straight down the middle. Here they unloaded and spent the day laboriously relaying their stores and camp-gear over the boulders and ragged ledges between a wall of rock and the water. It was a remarkably difficult traverse. In places they had to hoist the leader up to some slippery shelf he could not reach unassisted and to which he dragged his companions up in turn; in others deep pools barred their way, and in skirting them they were forced to cling to any indifferent handhold on the rock's fissured side. As they toiled on, badly hampered by their loads, the same thought was in the minds of two of the men--a wonder as to how Gladwyne's exhausted party had crossed that portage, unless the water had been lower. It was not difficult to understand how the famishing leader had fallen and lamed himself. When at last, toward the end of the afternoon, the stores had been deposited on the banks of the pool below, Lisle sat down and filled his pipe. "It would take us most of two days to portage the canoe, and we might damage her badly in doing so," he said. "The head of the rapid's impossible, but with luck we might run her down the rest in about ten minutes. The thing seems worth trying, though I wouldn't have risked it with the stores on board." "Suppose you swamped or upset her?" Nasmyth suggested. "It's less likely, since she'd go light, with only two of us paddling." Nasmyth considered. The sight of the rapid was not encouraging, but he shrank from the intense effort that would be needed to transport the craft by the way they had come. Eventually it was decided to leave Jake below, ready to swim out with the tracking-line and seize the canoe if any mishap befell, and Lisle and Nasmyth went back to the head of the rapid. They dragged the canoe round the worst rush with infinite difficulty; and then Nasmyth set his lips and braced himself for the mad descent when his companion thrust her off.