Speechless with
disappointment, she merely sat and stared straight ahead at the
black, unyielding rock. Harry knelt beside her with his arm
across her shoulders.
I roused him with a jerk of the arm.
"Come--get busy! A few hours in this hole and we'd suffocate. Do
you realize that we've got to pull this raft back against the
current?"
First it was necessary to repair the rent in the hide covering.
This we did with strips of hide; and barely in time, for it was
becoming wider every minute, and the water was beginning to creep
in over the edge. But we soon had the ends sewed firmly together
and turned our hands to the main task.
It appeared to be not only difficult, but actually impossible to
force the raft back up-stream against the swift current. We were
jammed against the rock with all the force of many tons of water.
The oar was useless.
Getting a purchase on the wall with our hands, we shoved the raft
to one side; but as soon as we got to the wall on the left the
whirling stream turned us around again, and we found ourselves
back in our original position, only with a different side of the
raft against the rock. That happened three times.
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