  As the raft was being swept into the whirlpool, Ike and Wah Shin sent up a shriek of alarm that rose high above the roar of the waters, and Maj crouched down lower on the blankets and moaned piteously. Ulna sat in his accustomed place. He did not make a movement, nor did the expression of his face change as they were being whirled to what seemed certain death. As nothing could be done to avert the impending catastrophe, Sam uttered a prayer, drew in his pole to save himself from being swept off and then sat as calmly and stoically down as if he were a young brave. There was a central vortex about which the waters swept with the speed of a mill-stream, and for this point—as if forced on by an irresistible power, the raft plunged. It seemed like going down a hill on a sled. Once fairly under way there was nothing to stop it. With one quick glance from the center of the whirlpool to the pillars piercing the sky, Sam closed his eyes expecting the next instant would be the last. But instead of rushing down to death, he was called back to an interest in his surroundings by feeling a peculiarly soothing, swinging sensation in the raft. He opened his eyes and looked about him, and to his unutterable surprise they were being swept about the mighty whirlpool, like a ball at the end of a string in a strong man's hand. Nearer and nearer to the center, until it seemed that the fraction of a second must bring the fatal plunge, and then the raft would be suddenly flung to the outer edge of the whirlpool again. "Golly!" exclaimed Ike, as he looked about him and winked very fast, "dis am curus." "Too muchee, swing, swing!" cried Wah Shin, as the raft hung again on the edge of the vortex, only to be hurled a second time to the outer edge. This swinging was at first a decidedly pleasant sensation, but soon it made the passengers on the raft giddy and then quite sick. It was only by keeping their eyes shut that they could command their senses. A half an hour of this whirling to the center and being thrown back to the edge continued, though it seemed much longer to the tortured occupants of the raft, and Sam spoke his thoughts rather than addressed any of his companions when he said: "Will this go on forever?" "It do look to me powahful-like's if we was a-gwine to sikle round dis yar place foheber an' eber, amen," said Ike. Sam looked up again at the sky, and the crimson hue of the clouds told him that the sun would soon sink in the upper world and that darkness would soon come to add to their trials. He felt that whether the raft was swallowed up or continued to swing in that giddy dance till morning would make but little difference to himself or his companions, for in either case death would come before morning. His brave heart grew heavy, as if the darkness of descending night were falling on it. He thought of his dead mother, thought of the imprisoned father, whom he had set out so heroically to save, and the death that threatened was only awful to him because he was to see his father nevermore. While these thoughts were running through his mind he felt a different movement in the raft. This was followed by a cheer from Ike and Wah Shin and the loud barking of the dog. Sam looked quickly up. Joy! joy! In some inexplicable way the raft had been hurled so far beyond the circle of the whirlpool's power as to be caught by the current and carried into the Colorado, which here begins its journey under that name, for the Gulf of California. Even Ulna was roused from his usual stoicism by the change. Pointing to the right, where in the twilight a low peninsula could be seen jutting into the river, he called to Sam: "Let us steer for that point. I think we can make a landing there." "All right," replied Sam with his habitual cheerfulness. Ulna now took up his own pole, and after much effort they succeeded in getting the raft to the low point, and here, without difficulty, they made a landing. As there was neither tree nor rock to tie to they pulled the raft high up on the strip of beach, and then looked around, but without success, for the means to make a fire. It was too dark to see ten feet away, so they sat on the rocks after making the discovery that what they supposed to be a peninsula was really an island. But they made another discovery at the same time that was destined to affect their progress very seriously, and that was that one-half the provisions had in some way been pushed or slipped from the raft; but they were lost, and hunger, or rather, starvation was only a few days off. They ate a little of their remaining provisions and then spread the blankets on the low, damp ground. Sam Willett had a military idea of the value of discipline. Having begun with having guards at night, he determined to keep it up till the end. The wisdom of this precaution was shown before another sun came to banish the shadows. About an hour before daylight Ulna, who was then watching, discovered that the flood was rising around them, and hastily awoke his companions. They sprang up to find the water roaring about them, and Sam, holding the raft to keep it from floating off, ordered the others to bundle up the blankets and get all the things on board. As soon as this was done they pushed the raft into deeper water, got on board and were at once swept away by the current. Such trials would have crushed the spirits of any but the bravest, and with a less resolute leader than Sam, despair would have made the others indifferent to their surroundings. While it was yet as dark as midnight in the caÑon, they could look up and see pink streaks in the far-off sky that told them the light of another day was again flushing the upper world. But the sun only looked into this gloomy abyss for one short hour in the twenty-four, and then left it to the gathering shadows and impenetrable night. It was ten o'clock by Sam's watch when they found a ledge of rocks on which they could make a landing. This haven was discovered none too soon, for the severe straining the raft had had in the whirlpool had loosened the cords that held the logs and they threatened to come apart and let all into the water. The remaining food was very much soaked, but their appetites were keen enough to eat the whole of it just as it was. Two more days would see all of their provisions gone, and, realizing this fact, Sam proposed dividing what was left so as to last over three days, but against this arrangement Ike and Wall Shin entered a protest. "Now, Mistah Sam," said Ike, "I ain't got nigh so much sinse as you has, but it'd been a heap sight bettah if you jest took my edvice." "Your advice about what, Ike?" asked Sam. "'Bout dat grub." "What about it?" "I proposed, night afore last, we should all go in and eat all we could—now, didn't I?" "I believe, Ike, you did say something like that." "An' you said 'no;' so w'at's the consekence?" "The consequence is, Ike, that you obeyed me then, and I expect you to obey me still," said Sam firmly. "Yes; an' I'll keep on obeyin' you till I die, but har's de pint," and Ike spread out his hand and looked at the palm as if he were reading. "If we'd hab eat a lot more ob dat grub, den dar wouldn't have been so much lost. Wouldn't it be a heap sight better if we had dat stuff inside ob us dan at de bottom ob dat ar whirlpole?" "We did everything for the best, Ike, and therefore we should not blame ourselves," said Sam. "I no tinkee dat glub's in watel," said Wah Shin. "Whar is it, den?" asked Ike. "I tink Maj he lookee muchee fat. Him no so hungly like befole; mebbe him eatee glub." The object of this awful accusation sat near by eyeing the little stock of provisions as if he could dispose of the lot without feeling any great discomfort. "No," said Ulna, who usually listened to these conversations without taking part in them; "the dog did not eat that food." "W'y you tinkee no?" asked Wah Shin. "Because the bag in which the food was placed is gone, and the dog could not have eaten that." "Me no so shule bout lat," said Wah Shin. "W'en dog him heap hungly him eat bag too." Clearly Ike and Wah Shin had formed a conspiracy against the dog, and this only confirmed Sam in his attachment to the poor brute, though more than once he wished that he was in some other place. Sam and Ulna at once set about repairing the raft, and while they were engaged in this work Ike showed that he had unbounded faith in his young master's knowledge by asking these questions: "Mistah Sam, w'at you tink bout dis time?" "Nothing, Ike," was the reply. "Know 'bout whar we is?" "I do not." "Know whar we'z goin'?" "No." "Nor whin we'll git dar?" "No." "Eber heah ob sich a fix?" "Never." "If we gits out ob dis yeh won't neber want to try anudder sich scrape, I reckon?" "No." "Ye've had enough?" "Yes." "So has I, but dar's no use a gibbin' up so, Mistah Brown!" and then with a sudden change of manner that startled all hands, the dog included, Ike sang out in a rich tenor voice.
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