At last, staggering on, she heard abreast of her the roar of the lower waterfall. She left the open and ploughed into the trees. She reached the river, staggering from the fierce strain. And now a dread thought came to her: Had she the strength to shove the heavy, awkward craft into the water? She remembered that it had required the combined efforts of her and Andy to launch it before, to which they had found it necessary to add no little ingenuity. But a feeble cry came from her lips as she neared the spot where they had left it. The river had risen. The canoe had launched itself and was riding easily at the end of the tough grass rope that they had braided for a painter and tied to a sapling on the river bank. She had never paddled this canoe, nor any other canoe. She knew, though, from what Andy had told her, that she must be cautious and not unbalance the clumsy craft. In her excitement she had stepped into it, taken up the paddle, and propelled it to the limit allowed by the grass rope before she realized that it was still made fast to the sapling. She pulled inshore again and stepped out, when, as she fumblingly untied the rope, she realized that it would be folly for her to paddle to the middle of the stream until the cylinder came in sight. She would wait inshore in the canoe, with paddle in readiness, until she saw the bright object coming down on the swift current. She carefully entered once more, and knelt on the rough bottom with her crude paddle. And now the terrible idea seized her that perhaps she had been too slow and that the cylinder had long since drifted by. She waited, torn by doubt and indecision, and was on the point of leaving the canoe and plunging on downstream when a bright something came toward her bobbing on the waves in the middle of the river. With an inarticulate cry she shoved off and paddled awkwardly ahead of it. Then the main current caught her, whirled her completely around, and started her downstream at the same rate that the cylinder was travelling. She paddled upstream, but seemed unable to gain a foot. She dipped more vigorously, her eyes on the drifting object of her hopes. The canoe was swept into a rapids, struck a snag--and next instant she was in the icy water, with the canoe capsized and hurrying on. She could swim, and her bellows breeches did not impede the movements of her legs as a skirt would have done. But she wore her heavy hiking shoes; the current was swift and dangerous; the river was deep; in a deplorably short time the ice-cold water would chill her blood and benumb her muscles.