“Danny!” shrieked the girl.  The voice of the rapids had changed its tone now, for a cataract was drumming upon the after-deck and there was a crashing and a smashing as the piles of boxes came tumbling down.  The scow drove higher upon the reef, its bow rose until it stood at a sharp incline, and meanwhile wave after wave cut like a broach over the stern, which steadily sank deeper.  Then the deck tilted drunkenly and an avalanche of case-goods was spilled over the side.

Sam Kirby found himself knee-deep in ice water; a roller came curling down upon him, but with a frantic clutch he laid hold of his daughter.  He sank the steel hook that did service as a left hand into a pile of freight and hung on, battling to maintain his footing.  With a great jarring and jolting the Rouletta rose from the deluge, hung balanced for a moment or two, and then, relieved of a portion of her cargo, righted herself and swung broadside to the stream as if upon a pivot; finally she was carried free.  Onward she swept, turning end for end, pounding, staggering, as other rocks from below bit into her bottom.

The river was very low at this season, and the Rouletta, riding deep because half filled, found obstacles she would otherwise have cleared.  She was out of the crooked channel now and it was impossible to manage her, so in a crazy succession of loops and swoops she gyrated down toward that tossing mane of spray that marked the White Horse.

With eyes of terror Sam Kirby scanned the boiling expanse through which the barge was drifting, but nowhere could he catch sight of Danny Royal.  He turned to shout to his pilot, only to discover that he also was missing and that the steering-sweep was smashed.

“God!  He’s gone!” cried the old man.  It was true; that inundation succeeding the mishap had swept the after-deck clean, and now the scow was not only rudderless, but it lacked a man of experience to direct its course.

Rouletta Kirby was tugging at her father’s arm.  She lifted a white, horrified face to his and exclaimed:  “Danny!  I saw him—­ go!”

Her father’s dead face was twitching; he nodded silently.  Then he pointed at the cataract toward which they were being carried.  He opened his lips to say something, but one of the crew came running back, shouting hoarsely and waving his arms.

“We’re going over,” the fellow clamored.  “We’ll all be drowned!”

Kirby felled him with a blow from his artificial hand; then, when the man scrambled to his feet, his employer ordered: 

“Get busy!  Do what you can!”

For himself, he took Royal’s sweep and struggled with it.  But he was woefully ignorant of how to apply his strength and had only the faintest idea what he ought to do.

Meanwhile the thunder of the White Horse steadily increased.

Having brought the last of the Courteau boats through the canon, ’Poleon Doret piloted the little flotilla across to the town of White Horse and there collected his money, while Pierce Phillips and the other men pitched camp.