About it, the racing waters would leap and boil in their furious, headlong career, shaking and tossing the helpless victim of their might with a vicious strength from which there would be no escape, until, in the climax of the river's madness, the object of its angry sport would be dashed against the cliff, and torn, and crushed, and hammered by the terrific weight of the rushing flood against that rocky anvil, into a battered and shapeless wreck.
The drifting boat drew nearer and nearer.

It reached the point where the curve of the opposite bank draws in to form the narrow raceway of the rapids.

It began to feel the stronger pull of those hidden hands that had carried it so easily down The Bend.

And then--and then--the unguided, helpless craft responded to the gentle pressure of some swirl or crosscurrent in the main flow of the stream, and swung a little to one side.

A few feet farther, and the new impulse became stronger.
Yielding easily to the current that drew it so gently across the invisible dividing-line between safety and destruction, the boat swung in toward the shore.