Adventure, August 1917 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 of the bay, straight up to the high rock. Keep so close to this rock you can touch it with your paddle and then keep on going, following the rock around its north end. There you'll find the lost river. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you last night. JOAN. Scarcely comprehending or believing, Wallace read it through a second time. Then, leaping to his feet, he called to his guide— “Come on, Frank! Quick— We’ve ot it!” “Got what?” was the uninterested reply. “The lost river! Come! Hurry! I’ve got to get there and see it, see what it means, what can be done with it.” Wallace started up the trail to the mission and Frank, hesitating over the breakfast dishes, at last turned and fol- lowed. When he arrived at the mission he found Wallace turning over the canoe which they had left on the beach the night before. Despite his hurry, the young engineer had stopped to ask for Joan. But Mrs. Knox had told him that she had left alone in a canoe, a half-hour before. On the three-mile journey to the bay Joan had described, Wallace’s thoughts were equally divided between joy that the missing river had been found and bewilder- ment that Joan had neither told of her discovery the previous evening nor had remained at the mission to give him the details. Of all the mystifying acts of this baffling girl, he found this the most inexplicable. This, then, was the reason for that mis- chievous laughter the night before. And then the remembrance of that light-hearted laugh brought a wave of understanding tenderness. In spite of all her sympathy and encouragement she had neither realized the importance of the power-site in his life, in his future, nor the necessity of speed. And now she had gone to the bay she had written of, to meet him there at the scene of his triumph. Smiling at the thought, he looked up to see that they had already turned into the bay. Silently the two men paddled straight on to the extreme end. Even the breed felt the poignancy of the moment. As they neared the high, straight rock, Wallace, who had been searching the shore-line eagerly, studying the ridges and hills behind it, felt his first misgivings. Could Joan have been playing a trick on him? This was the bay. There was the Adventure high rock at the end of it. There was no other deep bay anywhere near the north- west corner of the lake. It was the place she had described in her note. But as for a river—there was no possible chance for one to get out there. The ridges rose high behind the rock, and the rock stretched straight across the end of the bay. It was a hoax, he knew, but he could not comprehend how Joan could do such a thing. He stopped paddling and looked ahead. It was useless going farther. Common sense told him there was no way for the lake to empty its waters through such a barrier. Frank, too, stopped paddling and the canoe drifted. Wallace, still hoping more that his faith in Joan might not be shaken than with any expectation of finding the river, sat motionless, looking at the wall before him. He had paddled over the same spot the morning of the first day of his search. Again on the second day he and Frank had conscientiously skirted the shore. He remembered the place very well because a south wind had given them fifteen minutes of hard work to get out to the lake again, and the waves had splashed and dashed against the flat wall of the rock. | SUDDENLY Wallace realized that Bs the canoe was continuing to drift saa Straight on, though neither he nor Frank was paddling. He looked at the rock and saw that he was moving rapidly. A glance at the water told that there was not a ripple at the bow of the canoe. Still the canoe went on, faster now. “It’s the current!’ whispered Frank excitedly from the stern. The current, she carry us. See!” Wallace dipped his paddle frantically. “Come on, Frank!” he called. “Right beside the rock. Keep her close.” The current and their own efforts carried them on along the base of the cliff straight toward the end of the bay. There the high rock ended, the usual North country shore-line began again, circling back along the north side of the bay. They reached the end of the rock, but there was a gap. Their canoe was whirled quickly about and they found themselves traveling toward the southwest in a nar- row, steep-walled ravine. “It’s the river, Frank!’ shouted Wallace almost hysterically. “It’s the river, and Comiclsoo CO S|