Here was the whirlpool! More than once Wabi had told him of these
treacherous traps, made by the mountain streams, and of the almost
certain death that awaited the unlucky canoe man drawn into their
smothering embrace. There was no angry raging of the flood here; at
first it seemed to Rod that they were floating almost without motion
upon a black, lazy sea that made neither sound nor riffle. Scarce half
a dozen canoe lengths away he saw the white center of the maelstrom,
and there came to his ears above the dash of the stream between the
two great rocks a faint hissing sound that curdled the blood in his
veins, the hissing of the treacherous undertow that would soon drag
them to their death! In the passing of a thought there flashed into
the white youth's mind a story that Mukoki had told him of an Indian
who had been lost in one of these whirlpools of the spring floods, and
whose body had been tossed and pitched about in its center for more
than a week. For the first time the power of speech came to him.

"Shall we jump?" he shouted.

"Hang to the canoe."

Wabi fairly shrieked the words, and yet as he spoke he drew himself
half erect, as if about to leap into the flood. The momentum gathered
in its swift rush between the rocks had carried their frail craft
almost to the outer edge of the deadly trap, and as this momentum
ceased and the canoe yielded to the sucking forces of the maelstrom
the young Indian shrieked out his warning again.

"Hang to the canoe!"