“And I’d put that paddle down before somebody gets hurt.”

For a moment Mike thought the boy was going to charge him. He shifted his weight and got himself ready, but the attack never came. The paddle suddenly stopped as the boy spun around on his heel and moved back up the embankment, motioning for his friends to follow. Silently they trooped along.

Mike took a deep breath and relaxed. Then he turned and joined Sandy and Doug at the dock.

“Whew!” Doug whistled admiringly. “You really gave it to him!”

“It didn’t take much, Doug,” Mike replied, keeping his eyes on Sandy’s worried face. “Hey, Sandy,” he said softly. “You sure you want to go through with this?”

Sandy flashed him an amused look. “Want me to run away?”

“No, but ...”

“Then I guess that’s it. I’m in too far to back down now.” Sandy reached out for his raft. “The only thing I need now is some information. How about it, Doug?” he asked. “Do I get a briefing on those rapids?”

Doug shuffled over to Sandy, one toe digging into the piled-up sand along the dock. “Sandy ...” he began in a troubled voice.

Sandy held up a hand. “That’s enough,” he said good-naturedly. “The only lecture I want to hear from you is how to get myself through those rapids I’ve let myself in for.”

Doug stared up at him in momentary indecision. “All right,” he said. “But let’s wait till we get there.”

Dog Leg Falls was about a mile upstream from the Kindergarten Rapids, in a wild and barren part of the river.

Mike took one look at the wild water, plunging noisily through the funnel of rocks, and smiled weakly over at Sandy. “Wonder where you turn off the faucet?” But it wasn’t much of a joke and nobody laughed.

Down by the falls—which weren’t really falls at all, but a series of turbulent runs of water—the banks of the river closed in on the channel like two jaws, wrenching it violently around in a sharp L-shaped turn. Through this narrow trough, the water snarled and fought its way, cascading over the rocks at the bend in towering sheets of spray.

On any other day, Sandy thought to himself, the rugged beauty and awesome power of the river at Dog Leg Falls would 

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