260 TIMEHRI. . 
| Pe: 
derful, was contriving to keep the bundle of my el othes 
fairly above the water. The black heads of the other 
Redmen were bobbing about, like so many fishing floats, 
in various parts of the rapids. When sometimes one | 
of these men, having rested for a moment, as I y 
myself doing, on some rock in midstream, and when he > 
plunged back into the flood I saw my most cherish i 
possessions—photographic apparatus included—dragg 
relentlessly under water. But, just as GABRIEL reach 
me and climbed up beside me, I saw a far worse sight. Fon! 
looking back on the bank we had left, I saw most of the 
women sittting philosophically on their packs at the river's % 
edge, watching the frantic efforts of a few of hele 
more adventurous sisters who had already plunged ir Re 
had already been separated from their packs, and wer. e 
now, women and packs alike, being rolled helter skelter 4 
down the rapids. Shouting to be heard above the 02 ro 
of the water, I begged the men, and especially GABRIEL, © 
to go back to the help of the women, and of my property, 
GABRIEL went—and in my anxiety I did not notice 
what he took with him. Then I plunged in again, and, 
after as painful a passage as before, contrived to reach 
the further bank. ’ . 
The first thought as I got out of the water was that all. : 
the “lunkes”’ from miles up and down the river had 
gathered to meet me, defenceless as I then was; the next, 
which was as an eleétric shock, was that GABRIEL 
had taken my clothes back with him. Shouting s 
useless; for he could not hear across the river. Fate 
was upon. me, and, with not even tobacco smoke to 
clothe me, I had to sit for an hour on the hot sand 
at the rivér side, without the shelter of bush or tree, 
