changeful. It moaned as if in pain--it whined, it cried. Then at
times it would seem strangely silent. The current as complex and
mutable as human life. It boiled, beat and bulged. The bulge
itself was an incompressible thing, like a roaring lift of the
waters from submarine explosion. Then it would smooth out, and
run like oil. It shifted from one channel to another, rushed to
the center of the river, then swung close to one shore or the
other. Again it swelled near the boat, in great, boiling, hissing
eddies.

"Look! See where it breaks through the mountain!" yelled Jones in
my ear.

I looked upstream to see the stupendous granite walls separated
in a gigantic split that must have been made by a terrible
seismic disturbance; and from this gap poured the dark, turgid,
mystic flood.

I was in a cold sweat when we touched shore, and I jumped long
before the boat was properly moored.

Emmett was wet to the waist where the water had surged over him.
As he sat rearranging some tackle I remarked to him that of
course he must be a splendid swimmer, or he would not take such
risks.

"No, I can't swim a stroke," he replied; "and it wouldn't be any
use if I could. Once in there a man's a goner."

"You've had bad accidents here?" I questioned.