Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [153]
The race resumed early the following morning, and Jack was delighted to find their big sail came into its own and took them along at a good speed. There were perhaps forty or fifty boats ahead, but behind them the rest of the vast armada was bunched up in clusters.
What with the warm sun, shining water and because their raft appeared to be far more stable and manageable than any other they’d seen, their spirits rose even higher. Jack had built low stools for them to sit on, so any water splashing up through the cracks of the raft wouldn’t soak their clothes, and they lounged on them, complimenting themselves on their good workmanship and foresight.
It was during the afternoon that Beth noticed some of the people in the boats ahead were pointing to what looked like a red flag hanging from a tree, and a scrawled one-word message on a piece of wood, saying, ‘Cannon’.
‘Seems like a warning,’ Jack said, and the words had barely left his lips when they heard the roar of tumbling water beyond.
As the lake made a slight turn to the left, they suddenly saw a narrow gorge before them, with steep black stone sides.
Beth gasped, Theo turned pale, and Sam waved his hat in excitement. ‘Hold tight,’ Jack shouted. ‘This must be Miles Canyon.’
One of the Mounties had told them about the canyon. He said it was a terrifyingly dangerous place with two lots of rapids beyond it, but none of them had expected it to come so soon. It was too late for them to paddle over to the shore and check it out, for the raft was being sucked straight into the gorge.
‘Take the paddles and use them to stop us being smashed against the sides,’ Jack yelled, thrusting a paddle into both Sam’s and Theo’s hands. ‘I’ll try and steer us. Beth, you just hold on for dear life.’
They all looked on in sheer horror as the raft hurtled into the canyon. It was a third of the width of the river they’d been in previously, and because the water was being forced into a much narrower space, it created a crest some four feet high in the middle. They were virtually teetering on this crest, going at breakneck speed, and the roar of the water was so loud they couldn’t hear one another speak.
The water was full of drifting timber, brought along here on the current from the mountain lakes, and large boulders and sharp rocks. Beth clung to the rail, watching in terror as Jack tried to steer them round the obstacles, and each time she heard a scrape on the bottom of the raft she braced herself for it being overturned.
Ahead of them they saw a large scow capsize, and five or six men desperately trying to cling on to it as it swirled around, smashing into rocks and boulders.
Beth glanced behind her and saw a canoe upturned, with no sign of the owner. But it was too frightening even to think about others, for their own raft was spinning round and round, up at the prow one minute, and then the stern would rear up like a bucking horse. Huge, icy waves washed over the raft, and they had to cling on to the sides in fear of being thrown overboard.
Beth closed her eyes involuntarily, and when she opened them she saw two more boats crash into boulders. One broke up instantly as if it were built from matchsticks.
Only Jack was standing. He’d lashed himself to the raft rail with rope, and with every muscle in his body straining, he held his paddle in his hands, using it to steer them past rocks and avoid crashing into the canyon walls.
One minute Sam had been kneeling at the prow, also wielding his paddle to push them away from rocks, but when Beth looked again he was gone.
‘Sam!’ she shrieked at the top of her lungs. ‘Sam’s gone over!’
She clung to the rail as she frantically looked for him but she could see nothing in