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For now, though, such s were best cast frorasp, they had surrendered to its direction and fury, and to survive was all that mattered

At first the water had an oily appearance, fast flowing but unbroken by protruding rocks The Yukon Belle slipped along co cal the tiller from side to side to steer the boat The canyon walls rose around them, the banks disappeared, and the water was funneled into narrower and narrower chased and roared The cliffs flashed by, and Jack glanced up to see the shadows of people watching froe, or perhaps they were sis of trees Either way, he felt alone with his friends and the river

They powered through the first violent patch of rapids, the boat slicing through waves and shuddering as it scraped across a shallow patch of buried stones Jack felt the vibration through his knees and tried not to ih boat was pulled apart by rocks

"Left!" Merritt shouted, and Jack tried to edge theht, the river foarily around its head

Jilasses, which were spattered with spray from the tumultuous river He stared past Jack, back the way they had co he’d never set foot in this boat Jack grinned at him, but Jim see, heart thruot to breathe as he concentrated on trying to keep to the central ridge of water It was fastest here, but it was also the clearest route through the rapids That was his hope, at least In reality, he knew that the bottom could be ripped from the boat at any moment

In those morin spread farther across his features, so wide that it hurt his face, and he whooped with ah he had left his body, as though he observed hih nature raged around and against hih he could command it, as if he were not a pawn like Odysseus but the river’s lanced over just in ti man’s arms whipped around and the re behind the boat The rock that had surprised Merritt and snapped his paddle ground against the boat’s hull, growling angrily as the water pushed them past Jack hauled on the tiller just in ti slowly toward the left wall of the canyon as the waters around the

"Dahed as he slapped Jiet lazy yet," Jack said "Plentythat would benefit none of them He had not mastered the wild yet, but he was damned if he’d let it defeat him

As they drifted down the river toward the next section of rapids, the s It was a wondrous place The steep canyon walls were speckled white here and there where snow had built up on ledges The cliff tops wereover the river valley, as if considering leaping in Birds circled in the gray sky above, and the sound of the river filled their ears Here it was a gentler flow, yet still it shushed from the canyon walls and echoed back, a constant whisper that would know no silence Jack felt at peace in such danger, and he asked hiht he was still a long way fro him closer

"This place is spooky," Merritt said fro around the canyon, past Jack, then ahead at where they were going, and if he’d been a dog, his hackles would have been up

"It’s too dalasses, wiping the lenses with measured strokes with his handkerchief "And too cold"

"Keep your gloves on, Jim," Jack said "You’ll need every nerve in your hands e hit the next rapids"

"I’m without a paddle," Merritt said He kicked the top off one of their food boxes, splitting away one of the boards and carefully bending the nails so that they were not protruding All the while he was looking around, like prey watching for its stalker

Jack looked around as well And as the roar of fresh rapids grew in the distance, realization struck hi watched

He did not think, We are being watched This was all hilanced around in growing panic, the less idea he had of where such attention was coh walls of the canyon too far away He even looked down into the dark waters, half expecting to see the faces of drownedto leer as he rode the river to his death

"Jack, Jiain"

And the river broke its back, drawing the little boat and its passengers into its raging wound

Perhaps it was the thought of being watched--perhaps it was the unsettling idea that he was observing himself from afar--but every moment of that experience iraph: the whirlpool, the Mane of the Horse, the wolf

The wolf ed into the next set of rapids, working as a teah Jack are of their woeful unreadiness for the trip they were undertaking Merritt sat in the bow, guiding them with his impromptu paddle Jim shipped his oars and sat awash in the base of the boat, keeping his weight as low as possible And Jack knelt at the stern, leaning on the tiller, doing his best to edge the boat this way and that In reality, though, the boat found its own path through the rapids, scraping and gouging past and over rocks He felt the craft being injured all around him, cracked and battered and split, and the fact that it held together e cal the water where its volume drove it upward, and past the rocks the boat tipped and fell doard a violent, swirling pool below Whirlpool! Jack had tiht The boat was trapped in conflicting currents, shaken this way and that, and water poured in fro, and had it not been so terrifying, Jack would have laughed Instead he grabbed on to the boat’s hull, racking his brains for a way to escape He shouted in terrified exhilaration, but the water was so loud that he could not even hear his own voice He was soaked to the skin and freezing cold, but so at the heart of hiht, and up at the cliffs, and though he still felt eyes upon him, the watcher was elsewhere

The boat slid sideways For a second that felt like minutes, it tilted on its side, and Jack expected thes would follow theed theed rocks worn s to steer theht Merritt’s eyes and realized that the big ned to their fate but delighted that they had tried

Then the Yukon Belle righted itself and turned its nose downstrea on its journey Jack shouted for joy, and this time he heard both his own voice and those of his coain, aware that they were not yet out of the fire Jack was exhausted, dripping wet, and freezing cold If it hadn’t been for his exertions in keeping the boat aimed toward the center of the river, his clothes would be freezing around his body, and he , he stea vapor rise froave him a thrill It was almost otherworldly