Adventure, August 1917 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

The N orthwoman we’ve found it. How did we ever miss it before?”’ , “The wind, she make us miss,” was the reply. “It blow from the south both times when we come in here, and we no see the current around the rock. Today the wind she blow from the west and there ain’t any waves in this bay.” “But who’d ever think there was a pas- sage behind that high rock?” “Oh, lots places like that in this country,” was the matter-of-fact reply. ‘Me know places only Indian know. Down in lower country there two lakes, Kabetogama and Sand Point, and stranger he never find way. out of either those lakes.” They had swept on through the ravine until a roar from ahead warned them that rapids or falls were in front. The river turned sharply back toward the northwest, around the end of a ridge, and Wallace saw the white line of foam ahead. Frank turned the canoe to the south bank and they got out. “That explains it,” said Wallace as he looked at the end of the low ridge across the river and at the higher ridge on the west. “From out there in the bay you’d never see this slit we’re in now, or suspect it was here.” But instantly his interest turned to the question of why the river had suddenly sought this new channel. He had noticed, after passing the turn around the high rock, that even in the ravine there was abundant evidence of the water having been there before. At least this much of the new river had existed as a quiet slough, unnoticed and unseen, perhaps unknown even to those at the mission notwithstanding their intimate knowledge of the lake. He turned at once to the falls, just below. After he had scrambled along the shore to their crest his first glance down the tum- bling, white water told the story. Uprooted trees, green branches swishing up and down in the turbulent water, the tips of small -spruce beyond in the quiet water at the foot, all were instant proclaimers of a new channel. . The engineer’s mind turned at once to the cause and he looked across the head of the falls. There, freshly broken, was the same soft rock that had formed the ledge beneath Curtain Falls, where he had first seen Joan. Instantly the situation came to him. 4I This softer rock, out-cropping so strangely in a land of flint-like granite, had at last given way before the pressure of water from the lake. At the very moment when he believed success was at hand this simple process of nature, inexorable in its very leisure, had wrecked his hopes. Only, in the same instant, his engineer’s mind grasped the simple problem of restoring the dam which nature no longer could maintain. A few hundred pounds of dynamite under the ledges above him, perhaps a little cement work, and the new river could be obliterated, the old one restored. And in the meantime, with the empty falls at the power-house site, the work of installation could go on without the usual difficulties attending such operations. He had seen enough and there had come the sudden idea that, by traveling steadily for two days, he could overtake Madison at the railroad. Eagerly he turned back to the canoe, calling to Frank to join him. But the guide was not anywhere in sight. Wallace called again, but the noise of the falls and the rapids prevented his voice from carrying far. He searched along the shore and at last caught sight of the breed high up above the river looking down at the new watercourse. Then he turned and saw his employer and waved to him. Wallace shook his head and motioned for the man to come down. But Frank remained where he was and pointed into the brush behind him. Irritated, Wallace repeated his semaphoric commands, but Frank continued to shake his head and motion behind him. Seeing that he could not make the man understand, Wallace began to climb to where he stood higher up the ridge and above the falls. When at last he scrambled through the brush to the rock on which Frank was standing, the guide merely signaled to him to follow. “But I want to catch the others before they get to the railroad,” protested Wallace irritably. “Wait,” replied Frank calmly. come here minute. thing.” He turned into the brush and began to climb farther. Wallace, because there was nothing else to do, followed. After a few yards he came to an open, level place, in the center of which Frank was standing, look- ing at something on the ground. “You Me show you some- oO COmicloo © S|