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One day a carcase of a wild pig in a highly decomposed condition was picked up by one of the paddlers on the Ubangi. This was cut up and shared among the canoes and part of it fell to my crew. Next day a most unpleasant smell accompanied us all the forenoon and no one could detect the cause, in fact, none of the natives noticed it.
In the stern twenty or thirty paddlers sit on the sides of the boat and work together, while on the extreme end two or three stand up with long paddles to steer.
Every moment it seemed to Tom that the boat must inevitably be dashed to pieces against one of these obstructions, for the light boats were whirled about like a feather on the torrent, and the paddlers could do but little to guide their course.
This was about a hundred yards in diameter, with a depression in the centre, and round this the raft was carried at a rate that defied the efforts of the two paddlers to check. At one moment they were within twenty yards of a flat forest-covered shore, and the next were near the edge of the torrent pouring down the rapids.
Those precocious paddlers had set up homes for themselves or had wedded into other tribes. The old couple at once set to work, toiling night and day, taking no time off for rest.
Having received their supplies, the canoes backed away and went moving up or down the river as the paddlers desired, sometimes two or three canoes close together, sometimes one alone, but all, whether alone or in groups, filling the occupants of the launch with desperate envy.
They yelled furiously, and shook their fists but they yelled and threatened in vain. Now they dared not follow farther. The boats from the Kentucky shore took the paddlers off the raft; dragged Little Fat Bear from the cold water. His teeth chattered. He could not manage himself. He had not been taken out any too soon. "Who are you, anyhow! White boys? Where from?"
"Paddle half a mile up the lake, then down," Dick ordered. This was done, Prescott and the paddlers keeping a sharp lookout. No body of a drowned man was seen, however, either on the surface or under the water. "I don't believe anyone was drowned," re marked Dick at last. "There is no wind today, and hardly any such thing as current on this placid water. Whoever the man was, he got ashore."
Then, one by one, every paddle was grabbed from the hands of the paddlers, and the canoes broached to and filled in that sea of death all save one, which was carried by the force of the wind away from the rest. In this were the only survivors two men. The agony could not have lasted long.
The paddlers were propelling the boat slowly in her direction it was almost upon her now there was a shout from a man in the bow she had been seen. Like a flash she dove once more and, turning, struck out rapidly straight back beneath the oncoming boat.
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