THE RIVER SHOWS ITS TEETH 291 



and was getting so tired now I could not keep warm; 

 there was a keen frost and I was wet to the skin. 

 The chance to rescue other things came again and 

 again. Twelve times did I plunge into that deadly 

 cold river, and so gathered a lot of small truck. Then 

 knowing I could do little more, and realising that 

 everything man could do would be done without me, 

 turned back reluctantly. Preble passed me at a run; 

 he had left the canoe in a good place and had saved 

 some bedding. 



"'Have you seen my journal-bag?' He made a 

 quick gesture down the river, then dashed away. 

 Alas! I knew now, the one irreplaceable part of our 

 cargo was deep in the treacherous flood, never to be 

 seen again. 



"At the canoe I set about making a fire; there was 

 no axe to cut kindling-wood, but a birch tree was near, 

 and a pile of shredded birch-bark with a lot of dry wil- 

 low on it made a perfect fire-lay; then I opened my 

 waterproof matchbox. Oh, horrors! the fifteen matches 

 in it were damp and soggy. I tried to dry them by 

 blowing on them; my frozen fingers could scarcely 

 hold them. After a time I struck one. It was soft and 

 useless; another and another at intervals, till thirteen; 

 then, despairing, I laid the last two on a stone in the 

 weak sunlight, and tried to warm myself by gathering 

 firewood and moving quickly, but it seemed useless 

 a very death chill was on me. I have often lighted 

 a fire with rubbing-sticks, but I needed an axe, as well 

 as a buckskin thong for this, and I had neither. I 

 looked through the baggage that was saved, no matches 





