When he struck the swift place, he went downstream like a flash, but still kept swimming valiantly.

I tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it impossible.

I encouraged him by yelling.

He drifted far below, stranded on an island, crossed it, and plunged in again, to make shore almost out of my sight.

And when at last I got to dry sand, there was Ranger, wet and disheveled, but consciously proud and happy.
After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile stretch from the Little to the Big Colorado.
Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a vast, sandy plain, flat and monotonous.