Wabi gave a terrific lunge with his paddle and the cone of a black
rock hissed past half a canoe length away.

"It's as black as a dungeon ahead, and I can hear rocks!" he shouted.
"Bring her in if you can, Muky, bring her in!"

There came the sudden sharp crack of snapping wood and a low
exclamation of alarm fell from Mukoki. His paddle had broken at the
shaft. In a flash Rod realized what had happened and passed back his
own, but that moment's loss of time proved almost fatal. Freed of its
guiding hand the birch bark swung broadside to the current, and at the
same time Wabi's voice rose in a shrill cry of warning.

"It's not rocks, it's a whirlpool!" he yelled. "The other shore, swing
her out, swing her out!"

He dug his own paddle deep down into the racing current and from
behind Mukoki exerted his most powerful efforts, but it was too late!
A hundred feet ahead the stream tore between two huge rocks as big as
houses, and just beyond these Rod caught a glimpse of frothing water
churning itself milk-white in the moonlight. But it was only a
glimpse. With a velocity that was startling the canoe shot between
the rocks, and as a choking sea of spray leaped into their faces
Wabigoon's voice came back again in a loud command for the others to
hang to the gunwales of their frail craft. For an instant, in which
his thoughts seemed to have left him, a roaring din filled Rod's ears;
a white, churning mist hid everything but his own arms and clutching
hands, and then the birch bark darted with the sudden impetus of a
freshly-shot arrow around the jagged edge of the boulder--and he could
see again.