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
Canyon, and the feet of men churned the wet sunless earth into mire and
bog-hole. And when they had done this they sought new paths, till
there were many paths. And on such a path Frona came upon a man spread
carelessly in the mud.
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