"She certainly answers the helm all right," I reported. "We can manage unless there is a string of rocks right across the stream."

"It will be easier as we go along," said Jim. "Not the river, of course, that will get worse, but we will understand it better, all its little curly-cues and cute little ways, like slambanging you into a cliff when you think that she is going to curve the other way."

In the early afternoon we ran into a broader canyon with great walls set back from the river and thickly dotted with pines.

The walls were magnificent, over two thousand feet in height, reaching in curves ahead of us, and curving down to the stream in bold promontories.

"By Jove, but this is a fascinating business," called Jim, as we approached a great curve in the canyon. "You never knew what is ahead the next minute."

"Yes," I replied, "it is, but there is an uncertainty about it that I don't like. How do we know but there may be a waterfall just around the corner there?"

"It may be rapids, but no waterfall," replied Jim. "You needn't expect any Niagara to loom up, because the parties who have been down here before would have discovered it and that would have been all that they would have discovered."

"I bet that this stream rises sometimes," interposed Tom. "Just look at that drift caught up there on that cliff, that must be all of thirty feet."

"It isn't very low water now," said Jim, "which is lucky for us, for we would be knocked out pretty quick if we ran into a whole nest of rocks or at least we would get stalled."

"I reckon that only a light skiff could go down here in low water," said Tom.

"Yes," I replied, "but it would be stove in pretty quick if it should strike an outcrop of rock."

"I guess 'The Captain' is the boat for this business," commented Jim.

"We will knock through with her somehow."

"More rapids," I cried, as we rounded the curve in the canyon.

Tom and I sprang to our oars, and in five minutes we were fighting our way through a bunch of foaming rocks, then down a bunchy descending current.

After a run of fifteen miles we came to a place where the river broadened into quietness, and ahead of us we saw a place where the waters rippled into a cove.

"There's the place to land," cried Jim.

CHAPTER XXI

A RIVER AMBUSH

We pulled diagonally across the river, and brought "The Captain" quietly alongside a gravelly sh.o.r.e that came down quite steep to the water.

"Let go your bow anchor there," commanded the commodore.

Splash went the heavy rock overboard with rope attached, and Jim let down the other anchor from the stern.

It seemed to me fine to be on land again. It was a relief to be out of the savage grip of the river, even for a little while.

"How far have we come to-day, Jim?" I asked.

"Between eighty and ninety miles, I reckon," he replied. "I feel as if I had rowed it myself. It gets into your shoulders handling that sweep."

"It's work, too, with the oars," I suggested. "We ought to be pretty powerful specimens by the time we have see-sawed down this river for a thousand miles or more."

"It's liable to make us muscle bound," declared Tom gloomily.

"Ho! ho! Tommy," cried Jim, slapping him on the shoulder. "You certainly are a lulu. Don't worry, you will never get muscle bound."

"But bound to get muscle," I put in.

"You needn't knock a fellow down," exclaimed Tom, wriggling his shoulder. "Might just as well be hit with a brick as have you pat me with that big hand of yours."

"It's good for you," said Jim. "Will make you tough."

"I've got too many things to make me tough," declared Tom. "We're plumb crazy to be tackling this river. It wasn't intended to be navigated."

"Perhaps not," responded Jim coolly, "but it is going to be navigated this time. I am going to fix our boat now so we won't have to bail when the waves come over."

So Jim went to work and in a short time he had cut three places on either side so that the water could drain through and back into the river.

While he was busy I went back of our camp with my shotgun, looking for game. At this point the walls bent back from the river for over a mile, and there was a growth of brush and of pine and cottonwood trees.

I had gone probably half a mile, when I saw a heavy bird rise from the brush ahead of me and light in a tree. It was too big for a grouse and I was puzzled to make it out.

Keeping cautiously out of sight I crawled up to within range, and, taking aim at a dark bunch among the branches, I fired and down it came kerplunk on the ground.

I ran quickly up, and to my surprise I saw that it was a fine turkey, a big gobbler. "My! won't this make the boys open their eyes and their mouths too," I mused to myself.

Picking up the turkey I continued hunting back towards the receding wall of the canyon. After a half hour's climb over rocks and through brush I came to a dark, narrow slit running westward through the wall of the canyon.

I decided not to go any further and perhaps it was just as well.

Something made me turn around, and I took up the trail for the camp. I had not gone far before I knew that I was being watched and followed.

Once I caught sight of a stealthy figure crawling from bush to bush. I was not greatly concerned, for I did not think that the object of the Indian was an attack, but simply to stalk me, and find out my business.

When I reached camp, I found Tom and Jim busy getting supper. They glanced up as I approached. I had fastened the turkey behind me in my belt.

"You're a mighty hunter," jeered Jim. "Got nothing but exercise as usual."

"Just bad luck. I'm sorry, boys," I replied meekly.

"What's the use of being sorry?" growled Tom. "I'm tired of eating nothing but jerked venison. I want a change of diet."

"You do, you old growler," I exclaimed. "Take that," and I swatted him over the head with the turkey.

Tom nearly fell over with the shock and the surprise of seeing a real turkey.

It was the first that we had seen since we had left the hospitable home of our friends the Hoskins, way back in Kansas.