before we were aware, or could make any effort to prevent it, carried us across into a billowy rapid. Over this we passed like an arrow, and were helplessly borne straight to what seemed certain destruction, a large pine-tree, through the lower branches of which the water rushed like the stream from a mill-wheel. “À terre--à TERRE avec la line!” shouted The Assiniboine, as we neared the bank for an instant, and making a desperate leap into the water caught the bushes, scrambled up the side, and whipped his rope round a tree. Cheadle jumped at the same moment with the other rope, and did likewise; but the cords, rotten from repeated wettings, snapped like threads, the raft was sucked under the tree, and disappeared beneath the water. Milton and the woman were brushed off like flies by the branches, but Mr. O’B., in some incomprehensible manner, managed to stick to the raft, and re-appeared above water further down, sitting silent and motionless, sailing along to swift destruction with seeming resignation. The Assiniboine and the boy--who had leaped ashore with his father--rushed along the bank in pursuit. Cheadle, however, who was following, with a confused notion that everybody was drowned but himself, heard a cry proceeding from the tree, and looking in that direction, observed Milton clinging to the branches, his body sucked under the trunk, and his head disappearing under water and rising again with the varying rush of the current. The woman was in similar position, but further out and on the lower side. Both were in imminent danger of being swept off every moment, and Cheadle, shouting to them for God’s sake to hold on, clambered along the tree and laid hold of Milton, who was nearest. He cried out to help the woman first, but Cheadle, seeing the woman was more difficult to reach, and Milton in the greater danger, helped him out at once. [Illustration: OUR MISADVENTURE WITH THE RAFT IN CROSSING CANOE RIVER. (_See page 271._) ] We then crawled carefully forwards to the rescue of the woman. She was, however, so far below, that it was impossible to lift her out, and we therefore held her as well as we could, and shouted to The Assiniboine to be quick with a rope. He, in the meantime, had caught up the raft in its swift career, and cried loudly to Mr. O’B., who sat motionless in the stern, to throw the end of the broken rope. Mr. O’B. responded only by a gentle shaking of the head, and a “No, no; no, thank you,” looking solemnly straight before him. The raft, however, bringing up for a moment against another overhanging tree, was arrested by The Assiniboine. Mr. O’B. instantly seized the opportunity of escape, darted on shore, and buried himself in the woods, regardless of the entreaties of his deliverer, to help in securing the raft.