For a little way he raced the
tumbling waters until he had gained a short distance ahead of the skiff;
then they saw him, without an instant's pause, leap from the high bank
far out into the boiling stream.
Running along the bank, the helpless watchers saw the man fighting his
way toward the boat. One moment, he disappeared from sight, dragged
beneath the surface by the powerful currents with which he wrestled. The
next instant, the boiling waters would toss him high on the crest of a
rolling wave, only to drag him down again a second later. But, always,
he drew nearer and nearer the object of his struggle, while the rapids
swept both the helpless woman and the tossing boat and the swimming man
onward toward the towering cliff, and the thunder-roar of the mad waters
below grew louder and louder.
The splendid strength of arms and shoulders which Brian Kent had
acquired by his months of work with his ax on the timbered mountain-side
sustained him now in his need. With tremendous energy, he breasted the
might of the furious river. To the watchers it seemed at times that it
was beyond the power of human muscles to endure the terrific strain.
Then he gained the boat, and they saw him striving with desperate energy
to drag it toward the opposite shore and so into the currents that would
carry it past the menacing point of the cliff and perhaps to the safety
of the quiet water below.
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