Then he turned and looked at the lolling tongues behind him that seemed still reaching for the boat and straightening up he shook his fist: "You didn't get me that time, dog-gone you, and what's more you won't!" All three boats were coming, rearing and plunging, disappearing and reappearing. Anxiously he watched Smaltz work until a bend of the river shut them all from sight. It was many miles before the river straightened out again but when it did he saw them all riding safely, with Smaltz holding his place in line. Stretches of white water came at frequent intervals all day but Bruce slept on the platform of his barge that night more soundly than he ever had dared hope. Each hour that passed, each rapid that they put behind them, was so much done; he was so much nearer his goal. On the second night when they tied up, with the Devil's Teeth, the Black Canyon and the Whiplash passed in safety, Bruce felt almost secure, although the rapid that he dreaded most remained for the third and last day. The boatmen stood, a silent group, at The Big Mallard. "She's a bad one, boys--and looking wicked as I've ever seen her." There was a furrow of anxiety between Bruce's heavy brows. Every grave face was a shade paler and Porcupine Jim's eyes looked like two blue buttons sewed on white paper as he stared. "I wish I was back in Meennyso-ta." The unimaginative Swede's voice was plaintive. "We dare not risk the other channel, Saunders," said Bruce briefly, "the water's hardly up enough for that." "I don't believe we could make it," Saunders answered; "it's too long a chance." Smaltz was studying the rocks and current intently, as though to impress upon his mind every twist and turn. His face was serious but he made no comment and walked back in silence to the eddy above where the boats were tied. It was the only rapid where they had stopped to "look out the trail ahead," but a peculiarity of the Big Mallard was that the channel changed with the varying stages of the water and it was too dangerous at any stage to trust to luck. It was a stretch of water not easy to describe. Words seem colorless--inadequate to convey the picture it presented or the sense of awe it inspired. Looking at it from among the boulders on the shore it seemed the last degree of madness for human beings to pit their Lilliputian strength against that racing, thundering flood. Certain it was that The Big Mallard was the supreme test of courage and boatmanship.