"It's all right, don't be frightened. We'll pull through, all right."

Once more we had whirled off into the main current; once more we were in that roaring torrent, with its fearsome dips and rises, its columned walls corroded with age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight.

The water smashed and battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed us in heavy sprays; yet with closed eyes and thudding hearts we waited.

Then suddenly the light grew strong again. The primaeval walls were gone.

We were sweeping along smoothly, and on either side of us the valley sloped in green plateaus up to the smiling sky.

I unlocked my arms and peered down to where her face lay half hidden on my breast.

"Thank God, I was able to reach you!"

"Yes, thank God!" she answered faintly. "Oh, I thought it was all over.

I nearly died with fear. It was terrible. Thank God for you!"

But she had scarce spoken when I realised, with a vast shock, that the danger was far from over. We were hurrying along helplessly in that fierce current, and already I heard the roar of the Squaw Rapids. Ahead, I could see them dancing, boiling, foaming, blood-red in the sunset glow.

"Be brave, Berna," I had to shout again; "we'll be all right. Trust me, dear!"

She, too, was staring ahead with dilated eyes of fear. Yet at my words she became wonderfully calm, and in her face there was a great, glad look that made my heart rejoice. She nestled to my side. Once more she waited.

We took the rapids broadside on, but the scow was light and very strong.

Like a cork in a mill-stream we tossed and spun around. The vicious, mauling wolf-pack of the river heaved us into the air, and worried us as we fell. Drenched, deafened, stunned with fierce, nerve-shattering blows, every moment we thought to go under. We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears. Giant hands with claws of foam were clutching, buffeting us. Shrieks of fury assailed us, as demon tossed us to demon. Was there no end to it? Thud, crash, roar, sickening us to our hearts; lurching, leaping, beaten, battered ... then all at once came a calm; we must be past; we opened our eyes.

We were again sweeping round a bend in the river in the shadow of a high bluff. If we could only make the bank--but, no! The current hurled us along once more. I saw it sweep under a rocky face of the hillside, and then I knew that the worst was coming. For there, about two hundred yards away, were the dreaded Whitehorse Rapids.

"Close your eyes, Berna!" I cried. "Lie down on the bottom. Pray as you never prayed before."

We were on them now. The rocky banks close in till they nearly meet.

They form a narrow gateway of rock, and through those close-set jaws the raging river has to pass. Leaping, crashing over its boulder-strewn bed, gaining in terrible impetus at every leap, it gathers speed for its last desperate burst for freedom. Then with a great roar it charges the gap.

But there, right in the way, is a giant boulder. Water meets rock in a crash of terrific onset. The river is beaten, broken, thrown back on itself, and with a baffled roar rises high in the air in a raging hell of spume and tempest. For a moment the chasm is a battleground of the elements, a fierce, titanic struggle. Then the river, wrenching free, falls into the basin below.

"Lie down, Berna, and hold on to me!"

We both dropped down in the bottom of the scow, and she clasped me so tightly I marvelled at the strength of her. I felt her wet cheek pressed to mine, her lips clinging to my lips.

"Now, dear, just a moment and it will all be over."

Once again the angry thunder of the waters. The scow took them nose on, riding gallantly. Again we were tossed like a feather in a whirlwind, pitchforked from wrath to wrath. Once more, swinging, swerving, straining, we pelted on. On pinnacles of terror our hearts poised nakedly. The waters danced a fiery saraband; each wave was a demon lashing at us as we passed; or again they were like fear-maddened horses with whipping manes of flame. We clutched each other convulsively. Would it never, never end ... then ... then ...

It seemed the last had come. Up, up we went. We seemed to hover uncertainly, tilted, hair-poised over a yawning gulf. Were we going to upset? Mental agony screamed in me. But, no! We righted. Dizzily we dipped over; steeply we plunged down. Oh! it was terrible! We were in a hornets' nest of angry waters and they were stinging us to death; we were in a hollow cavern roofed over with slabs of seething foam; the fiery horses were trampling us under their myriad hoofs. I gave up all hope. I felt the girl faint in my arms. How long it seemed! I wished for the end. _The flying hammers of hell were pounding us, pounding us--Oh, God! Oh, God!..._

Then, swamped from bow to stern, half turned over, wrecked and broken, we swept into the peaceful basin of the river below.

CHAPTER XIV

On the flats around the Whitehorse Rapids was a great largess of wild flowers. The shooting stars gladdened the glade with gold; the bluebells brimmed the woodland hollow with amethyst; the fire-weed splashed the hills with the pink of coral. Daintily swinging, like clustered pearls, were the petals of the orchid. In glorious profusion were begonias, violets, and Iceland poppies, and all was in a setting of the keenest emerald. But over the others dominated the wild rose, dancing everywhere and flinging its perfume to the joyful breeze.

Boats and scows were lined up for miles along the river shore. On the banks water-soaked outfits lay drying in the sun. We, too, had shipped much water in our passage, and a few days would be needed to dry out again. So it was that I found some hours of idleness and was able to see a good deal of Berna.

Madam Winklestein I found surprisingly gracious. She smiled on me, and in her teeth, like white quartz, the creviced gold gleamed. She had a smooth, flattering way with her that disarmed enmity. Winklestein, too, had conveniently forgotten our last interview, and extended to me the paw of spurious friendship. I was free to see Berna as much as I chose.

Thus it came about that we rambled among the woods and hills, picking wild flowers and glad almost with the joy of children. In these few days I noted a vast change in the girl. Her cheeks, pale as the petals of the wild orchid, seemed to steal the tints of the briar-rose, and her eyes beaconed with the radiance of sun-waked skies. It was as if in the poor child a long stifled capacity for joy was glowing into being.

One golden day, with her cheeks softly flushed, her eyes shining, she turned to me.

"Oh, I could be so happy if I only had a chance, if I only had the chance other girls have. It would take so little to make me the happiest girl in the world--just to have a home, a plain, simple home where all was sunshine and peace; just to have the commonest comforts, to be care-free, to love and be loved. That would be enough." She sighed and went on:

"Then if I might have books, a little music, flowers--oh, it seems like a dream of heaven; as well might I sigh for a palace."

"No palace could be too fair for you, Berna, no prince too noble. Some day, your prince will come, and you will give him that great love I told you of once."

Swiftly a shadow came into the bright eyes, the sweet mouth curved pathetically.

"Not even a beggar will seek me, a poor nameless girl travelling in the train of dishonour ... and again, I will never love."

"Yes, you will indeed, girl--infinitely, supremely. I know you, Berna; you'll love as few women do. Your dearest will be all your world, his smile your heaven, his frown your death. Love was at the fashioning of you, dear, and kissed your lips and sent you forth, saying, 'There goeth my handmaiden.'"

I thought for a while ere I went on.

"You cared for your grandfather; you gave him your whole heart, a love full of self-sacrifice, of renunciation. Now he is gone, you will love again, but the next will be to the last as wine is to water. And the day will come when you will love grandly. Yours will be a great, consuming passion that knows no limit, no assuagement. It will be your glory and your shame. For him will your friends be foes, your light darkness. You will go through fire and water for your beloved's sake; your parched lips will call his name, your frail hands cling to him in the shadow of death. Oh, I know, I know. Love has set you apart. You will immolate yourself on his altars. You will dare, defy and die for him. I'm sorry for you, Berna."

Her face hung down, her lips quivered. As for me, I was surprised at my words and scarce knew what I was saying.

At last she spoke.

"If ever I loved like that, the man I loved must be a king among men, a hero, almost a god."

"Perhaps, Berna, perhaps; but not needfully. He may be a grim man with a face of power and passion, a virile, dominant brute, but--well, I think he will be more of a god. Let's change the subject."

I found she had all the sad sophistication of the lowly-born, yet with it an invincible sense of purity, a delicate horror of the physical phases of love. She was a finely motived creature with impossible ideals, but out of her stark knowledge of life she was navely outspoken.

Once I asked of her:

"Berna, if you had to choose between death and dishonour, which would you prefer?"

"Death, of course," she answered promptly.

"Death's a pretty hard proposition," I commented.

"No, it's easy; physical death, compared with the other, compared with moral death."

She was very emphatic and angry with me for my hazarded demur. In an atmosphere of disillusionment and moral miasma she clung undauntedly to her ideals. Never was such a brave spirit, so determined in goodness, so upright in purity, and I blessed her for her unfaltering words. "May such sentiments as yours," I prayed, "be ever mine. In doubt, despair, defeat, oh Life, take not away from me my faith in the pure heart of woman!"

Often I watched her thoughtfully, her slim, well-poised figure, her grey eyes that were fuller of soul than any eyes I have ever seen, her brown hair wherein the sunshine loved to pick out threads of gold, her delicate features with their fine patrician quality. We were dreamers twain, but while my outlook was gay with hope, hers was dark with despair. Since the episode of the scow I had never ventured to kiss her, but had treated her with a curious reserve, respect and courtesy.