Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

300 minute, an’ I'll try to shove her off. Must be we’ve headed along some new channel. There hadn’t ought to be rocks in the main river.”’ The clumsy craft shifted position with an ugly grating sound as the current sucked and gurgled about it, and the white-capped waves pounded its sides and broke in white foam over the gunwales. The Texan took soundings with the pole. ‘“‘ Deep water on three sides,” he announced, “ an’ about a foot down to solid rock on the other. May- be I can climb out an’ shove her off.”’ ‘No, no!’’ cried the girl in a sudden panic of fear. “ You can’t swim, and sup- pose something should happen and the boat moved off before you could climb it? You’d be washed off the rock in a minute, and I—I couldn’t stand it alone!”’ “The way she’s millin’ around on the rock, I’m afraid she’ll rip her bottom out. She’s leakin’ already. There’s more water in her now than when we started to bail.” “Most of it splashed in over the sides— see, when the waves break.”’ ‘““ Maybe,” assented the Texan carelessly, but in the darkness he stooped and with his fingers located a crack where the plank- ing had been forced apart, through which the river water gushed copiously. Without a word he stepped to the girl’s saddlle and took down the rope. “ We’ve got to get oif here” he insisted. ‘‘ Where’d we be if some big tree like the one that knocked me cold would drift down on us?” As he talked he passed the loop of the rope over his head and made it fast about his shoulders, and allowing ten or twelve feet of slack, knotted it securely to a ring in the end of the boat. ‘“‘ There, now I can get onto the rock an’ by using the pole for a crowbar, I can pry us off, then if I get left Ill just trail along on this rope till I can pull myself in.”’ The man’s first effort resulted only in breaking a couple of feet from the end of his lever, but finally, by waiting to heave on his bar at the moment a wave pounded the side, he had the satisfaction of seeing the craft move slowly, inch by inch, toward the deeper water. A moment later the man thanked his stars that he had thought of the rope, for, without warning, the boat lifted on a huge wave and slipped from the | ing stream of water. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. rock, where it was instantly seized by the current and whirled down-stream with a force that jerked him from his feet. Taking a deep breath, he clutched the line, and easily pulled himself alongside, where the girl assisted him over the gunwale. They were entirely at the mercy of. the river, for in the suddenness of their escape from the rock, the Texan had been unable to save the pole. his boot he began to bail earnestly, and as Alice attempted to locate the other boot her hand came im contact with the inrush- “Oh, it is leaking!” she cried in dismay. ‘I can feel it pouring through the bottom!” ‘Yes, I found the leak back there on the rock. If we both bail for all we’re worth maybe we can keep her afloat.” Alice found the other boot, and for what seemed interminable hours the two bailed in silence. But, despite their efforts, the water gained. Nearly half full, the boat floated lower and more sluggishly. Waves broke over the side with greater frequency, adding their bit to the stream that flowed in through the bottom. At length, the girl dropped her boot with a sigh that was hali a sob: “I can’t lift another bootful,”’ she murmured. ‘‘ My shoulders and arms ache so—and I feel—faint.”’ ‘“ Just you prop yourself up in the corner an’ rest a while,” advised the Texan with forced cheerfulness, ‘“‘I can handle it all right, now.” Wearily, the girl obeyed. At the bow and stern of the square-ended boat, the bot- tom curved upward so that the water was not more than six or eight inches deep where she sank heavily against the rough planking, with an arm thrown over the gunwale. Her eyes closed, and despite the extreme discomfort of her position, utter weariness claimed her, and she sank into that -border- land of oblivion that is neither restful sleep, nor impressionable wakefulness. It may have been minutes later, or hours, that the voice of the Texan brought her jerkily erect. Vaguely she realized that she could see him dimly, and that his arm seemed to be pointing at something. With a sense of great physical effort, she managed to follow the direction of the pointing arm, Eomichoo “S Groping in the water for _ (E()