"This plum rips the strings outa the Box," Shorty concluded.

As they watched, a boat took the head of the rapids above. It was a
large boat, fully thirty feet long, laden with several tons of
outfit and handled by six men. Before it reached the Mane it was
plunging and leaping, at times almost hidden by the foam and spray.

Shorty shot a slow, sidelong glance at Kit, and said:

"She's fair smoking, and she hasn't hit the worst. They've hauled
the oars in. There she takes it now. God! She's gone! No; there
she is!"

Big as the boat was, it had been buried from sight in the flying
smother between crests. The next moment, in the thick of the Mane,
the boat leaped up a crest and into view. To Kit's amazement he saw
the whole long bottom clearly outlined. The boat, for the fraction
of an instant, was in the air, the men sitting idly in their places,
all save one in the stern who stood at the steering sweep. Then
came the downward plunge into the trough and a second disappearance.
Three times the boat leaped and buried itself, then those on the
bank saw its nose take the whirlpool as it slipped off the Mane.
The steersman, vainly opposing with his full weight on the steering-
gear, surrendered to the whirlpool and helped the boat to take the
circle.

Three times it went around, each time so close to the rocks on which
Kit and Shorty stood, that either could have leaped on board. The
steersman, a man with a reddish beard of recent growth, waved his