"No, you won't"; and Harry turned on his heel, and leisurely walked off towards the thickest of the forest.

"Where are you going?"

"Off."

"Off where?"

"Do you think I'm going to stay with you, to be treated like a dog!"

replied Harry, as he continued his retreat.

Ben started after him, but Harry picked up a stick of wood and stood on the defensive.

"Now, if you don't come back, I'll break your head!" said Ben.

"Look out that your own don't get broke"; and Harry brandished his cudgel in the air.

Ben glanced at the club, and saw from the flash of Harry's bright eye that he was thoroughly aroused. His companion was not to be trifled with, and he was ready to abandon the point.

"Come, Harry, it's no use for us to quarrel," he added, with a forced smile.

"I know that; but I won't be trod upon by you or anybody else."

"I don't want to tread on you."

"Yes, you do; you needn't think you are going to lord it over me in that way. I will go back to the poorhouse first."

"Let's be friends again, Harry. Throw down your club."

"Yes, and let you lick me, then! No, you don't!"

"I won't touch you, Harry; upon my word and honor, I won't."

"Humph! Your word and honor ain't worth much. I'll go back, if you'll behave yourself; but I shall keep the club handy."

"Anyway you like; but let us be off."

Ben changed his tone, and condescended to tell Harry what he meant to do, even at the sacrifice of his dignity as commander of the expedition. An appearance at least of good feeling was restored, and after breakfasting on their bread and cheese, they embarked again, on what promised to be a perilous voyage.

For a quarter of a mile below, the bed of the narrow river was spotted with rocks, among which the water dashed with a fury that threatened the destruction of their frail bark. For a time they seriously debated the question of abandoning the project, Harry proposing to penetrate the woods in a northeasterly direction. Ben, however, could not abandon the prospect of sailing leisurely down the river when they had pa.s.sed the rapids, making the pa.s.sage without any exertion. He was not pleased with the idea of trudging along on foot for thirty miles, when the river would bear them to the city with only a little difficulty occasionally at the rapids and shoal places. Perhaps his plan would have been practicable at the highest stage of water, but the river was now below its ordinary level.

Ben's love of an easy and romantic time carried the day, and Harry's practical common-sense reasoning was of no avail, and a taunt at his cowardice induced him to yield the point.

"Now, Harry, you take one of the paddles, and place yourself in the bow, while I steer," said Ben, as he a.s.sumed his position.

"Very well; you shall be captain of the boat, and I will do just as you say; but I won't be bullied on sh.o.r.e," replied Harry, taking the station a.s.signed him.

"All right; now cast off the painter, and let her slide. Keep both eyes open."

"Never fear me; I will do my share."

The boat floated out into the current, and was borne rapidly down the swift-flowing stream. They were not very skillful boatmen, and it was more a matter of tact than of strength to keep the boat from dashing on the sharp rocks. For a little way they did very well, though the pa.s.sage was sufficiently exciting to call their powers into action, and to suggest a doubt as to the ultimate result of the venture.

They soon reached a place, however, where the river turned a sharp angle, and the waters were furiously precipitated down upon a bed of rocks, which threatened them with instant destruction.

"We shall be smashed to pieces!" exclaimed the foolhardy pilot, as his eye measured the descent of the waters. "Let's try to get ash.o.r.e."

"Too late now," replied Harry, coolly. "Put her through, hit or miss."

But Ben's courage all oozed out, in the face of this imminent peril, and he made a vain attempt to push the boat toward the sh.o.r.e.

"Paddle your end round, Harry," gasped Ben, in the extremity of fear.

"We shall be smashed to pieces."

"Too late, Ben; stand stiff, and make the best of it," answered Harry, as he braced himself to meet the shock.

The rushing waters bore the boat down the stream in spite of the feeble efforts of the pilot to check her progress. Ben seemed to have lost all his self-possession, and stooped down, holding on with both hands at the gunwale.

Down she went into the boiling caldron of waters, roaring and foaming like a little Niagara. One hard b.u.mp on the sharp rocks, and Harry heard the boards snap under him. He waited for no more, but grasping the over-hanging branches of a willow, which grew on the bank, and upon which he had before fixed his eyes as the means of rescuing himself, he sprang up into the tree, and saw Ben tumbled from the boat into the seething caldron.

"Save me, Harry!" shouted Ben.

But Harry had to save himself first, which, however, was not a difficult matter. Swinging himself from branch to branch till he reached the trunk of the willow, he descended to the ground, without having even wet the soles of his shoes.

"Save me! save me!" cried Ben, in piteous accents, as the current bore him down the stream.

"Hold on to the boat," replied Harry, "and I will be there in a minute."

Seizing a long pole which had some time formed a part of a fence there, he hastened down the bank to the water's edge. The water was not very deep, but it ran so rapidly that Ben could neither swim nor stand upon the bottom; and but for his companion's promptness he would undoubtedly have been drowned. Grasping the long pole which Harry extended to him, he was drawn to the sh.o.r.e, having received no other injury than a terrible fright and a good ducking.

"Here we are," said Harry, when his companion was safely landed.

"Yes, here we are," growled Ben; "and it is all your fault that we are here."

"It is my fault that _you_ are here; for if I had not pulled you out of the river, you would have been drowned," replied Harry, indignantly; and perhaps he felt a little sorry just then that he had rescued his ungrateful commander.

"Yes, and if you had only done as I told you, and pushed for the sh.o.r.e above the fall, all this would not have happened."

"And if you hadn't been a fool, we should not have tried to go through such a hole. There goes your old boat"; and Harry pointed to the wreck, filled with water, floating down the stream.

"Here they are!" shouted a voice, not far from them.

Harry started, and so did Ben.

"We are caught!" exclaimed Ben.

"Not yet," replied Harry, with some trepidation, as he broke off a piece of the pole that lay at his feet, and retreated from the river.

"Take a club, for I am not going to be carried back without fighting for it."