gravity of the moment. That their enemies would endeavor to reach
this point before them was almost certain; and it seemed so little
probable any one should attempt to pass it, in the profound obscurity
which reigned, that Pathfinder was confident parties were on both
sides of the river, in the hope of intercepting them when they
might land. He would not have made the proposal he did had he not
felt sure of his own ability to convert this very anticipation of
success into a means of defeating the plans of the Iroquois. As
the arrangement now stood, however, everything depended on the skill
of those who guided the canoes; for should either hit a rock, if
not split asunder, it would almost certainly be upset, and then
would come not only all the hazards of the river itself, but, for
Mabel, the certainty of falling into the hands of her pursuers.
The utmost circumspection consequently became necessary, and each
one was too much engrossed with his own thoughts to feel a disposition
to utter more than was called for by the exigencies of the case.

At the canoes stole silently along, the roar of the rift became
audible, and it required all the fortitude of Cap to keep his seat,
while these boding sounds were approached, amid a darkness which
scarcely permitted a view of the outlines of the wooded shore and
of the gloomy vault above his head. He retained a vivid impression
of the falls, and his imagination was not now idle in swelling the
dangers of the rift to a level with those of the headlong descent
he had that day made, and even to increase them, under the influence
of doubt and uncertainty. In this, however, the old mariner was
mistaken, for the Oswego Rift and the Oswego Falls are very different
in their characters and violence; the former being no more than
a rapid, that glances among shallows and rocks, while the latter
really deserved the name it bore, as has been already shown.