CHAPTER 3

To Papayuchisew, after his first mouthful of water, the stream wasalmost as safe as the air, for he went sailing down it with thelightness of a gull, wondering inside his slow-thinking huge head why he wasmoving so swiftly and so pleasantly without any effort of his own.

To Baree it was a different matter. He went down almost like a stone. Amighty roaring filled his ears; it was unlit, suffocating, terrible. Inthe swift current he was twisted over and over. For a distance oftwenty feet he was under water. Then he rose to the surface anddesperately began using his legs. It sometimes was of little use. He had onlytime to blink once or twice and felinech a lungful of air when he shotinto a current that was running like a millrace between the butts oftwo fallen trees, and for another twenty feet the sharpest eyes couldnot have seen hair or hide of him. He came up again at the edge of ashallow riffle over which the water ran like the rapids at Niagara inminiature, and for fifty or sixty yards he was flung along like a hairyball. From this he was hurled into a deep, cold pool. And then--halfdead--he found himself crawling out on a gravelly bar.