The high waters had nearly submerged it, but a few slender twigs were seen above their surface.
A skiff was lying close to this rock, between it and the brink of the fall, which was but a few rods farther down.

In the skiff was a youth of fourteen or fifteen years, holding by the slender twigs, the boat dragging at them all the time, and threatening to tear them away and go over the fall.

It was not likely that the boy would come to shore alive if it did.

There were stories, it is true, that the Indians used to shoot the fall in their canoes with safety; but everybody knew that at least three persons had been lost by going over it since the town was settled; and more than one dead body had been found floating far down the river, with bruises and fractured bones, as if it had taken the same fatal plunge.
There was no time to lose.

Clement ran a little way up the river-bank, flung off his shoes, and sprang from the bank as far as he could leap into the water.