heroic, but giants though they were, the task was too great and they
were dragged, inch by inch, downward and under.

Their packs held them to the bottom, save him whose strap had broken.
This one struck out, not to the shore, but down the stream, striving to
keep up with his comrades. A couple of hundred feet below, the rapid
dashed over a toothed-reef of rocks, and here, a minute later, they
appeared. The cart, still loaded, showed first, smashing a wheel and
turning over and over into the next plunge. The men followed in a
miserable tangle. They were beaten against the submerged rocks and
swept on, all but one. Frona, in a canoe (a dozen canoes were already
in pursuit), saw him grip the rock with bleeding fingers. She saw his
white face and the agony of the effort; but his hold relaxed and he was
jerked away, just as his free comrade, swimming mightily, was reaching
for him. Hidden from sight, they took the next plunge, showing for a
second, still struggling, at the shallow foot of the rapid.

A canoe picked up the swimming man, but the rest disappeared in a long
stretch of swift, deep water. For a quarter of an hour the canoes
plied fruitlessly about, then found the dead men gently grounded in an
eddy. A tow-rope was requisitioned from an up-coming boat, and a pair
of horses from a pack-train on the bank, and the ghastly jetsam hauled
ashore. Frona looked at the five young giants lying in the mud,
broken-boned, limp, uncaring. They were still harnessed to the cart,
and the poor worthless packs still clung to their backs, The sixth sat
in the midst, dry-eyed and stunned. A dozen feet away the steady flood
of life flowed by and Frona melted into it and went on.


The dark spruce-shrouded mountains drew close together in the Dyea