The Ledge on Bald Face

othed ledges and treacherous, channel-splitting shoals. These ten miles are a trial of nerve and water-craft for the best canoists on the river. In the spring, when the river w

us. But it was full of snares and hidden teeth. It was no place for the canoist, however expert with pole and paddle, unless he knew how to read the water unerringly for many yard

ad of the rapids, which were hidden from the paddler's view by a high, densely-wooded bend of the shor

ed by the weather. He was dressed roughly but well, and not as a woodsman, and he had a subtle air of being foreign to the bac

d scratches, his baby face of the tenderest cream and pink, his round, interested eyes as blue as periwinkle blossoms. But the most conspicuous thing about him was his hair. He was barehe

ce could see nothing to explain the noise. His father, however, sitting up on the hinder bar of the canoe, could see a menacing white line of tossing crests, aflash

nfronting him. He had heard of the perils of Dead Man's Run, but that, of course, meant in time of freshet, when even the mildest streams are liable to go mad and run amuck. This was the season of dead low water,

f buffeted from below, and the wave-tops slapped in on e

first chute. As he swept past in safety he laughed in triumph, for the passage had been close and exciting, and the conquest of a mad rapid is one of the thrilling th

rply across the great current, surging with short terrific strokes upon his sturdy maple blade, his teeth set and his breath coming in grunts, he was swept on downward, sideways toward the rocks

channel was straight and clear of rocks, and though the rips were heavy

ake shore with any chance of escaping shipwreck. A woodsman, expert with the canoe-pole, might have managed it, but the stranger had neither pole nor sk

raid, son. Dad'll take care of you," when the canoe was once more in a yelling chaos of chutes and ledges. And now there was no respite. Unable to rea

hissing wave-crests cut themselves off and leapt over the racing gunwale, till he feared the canoe would be swamped. Once they scraped so savagely that he thought the bottom was surely ripped fro

canoe, in swerving from one foam-curtained rock, grounded heavily upon another. In an instant the little craft was swung b

ching the little one, with one hand, by the back of the scarlet jacket. The next moment he went under and the jacket came off over th

, and full of water, was hurrying off down the rapid amid a fleet of paddles, cushions, blankets, boxes, and bundles. The body of the man, heavy and inert and sprawling, followed more slowly. The waves rolled it over and tr

nconsciousness, was stranded on a sand spit some eight or ten yards from the right-hand shore. There he lay, half in the water, half ou

rose to his baby lips, and a small, paper-blue butterfly hovered over his

e fir woods and down to the water's edge. He gazed searchingly up and down the river to see if there were any other human creatures in sight, then stretched his savage black muzzle out over the water toward the sand spit, eyeing and sniffing at the little unconsci

awled to a dry spot, and snuggled down into the hot sand. For the moment he was too dazed to realize where he was. Then, as the life pulsed back into his veins, h

ear drew back discreetly behind a bush, and glanced uneasily up and down the stream to see if the parent would come in answer to

se to his feet, and began repeating over and over the shrill wail of "Daddy, Daddee-ee, Daddee-ee!" At the same time he peered about him in eve

s father, but they found the bear, its great

eechless, at the awful apparition. The bear, realizing that the little one's cries had brought no succour, came out from its hiding confidently, and

edge of the sand, covered his face with his hands, and fell to whimpering piteously,

it then explored the water's edge for a little distance down stream, but with a like result. But it would not give up. Up and down, up and down, it continued to patrol the shore with hungry obstinacy. And the piteous whimpering of the li