perhaps two minutes, or just as long as he could hold on. His head was bleeding profusely from a bad gash in his forehead. This partly blinded his eyes, and also made him faint. It was certainly a hopeless case. Here he was, so far as he knew, fifty miles from any human help. God alone could save him.
He was clinging desperately to a rock as slippery as ice, and the current was pulling at him with a death pull, and his strength was each second waning. He looked about desperately, he saw every detail of the wild scene, the boiling waters, the jagged rocks, the darkling trees, and the distant sky line. He thought of home and Oregon. His chance of ever seeing any of his family again looked very small. It seemed to him that the river each moment increased its pull upon him, but it was his own rapidly waning strength. Finally he began to tremble as he realized that the moment for letting go was near at hand.
But just as he seemed about to reach the
