Explore "Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days" by Miles Franklin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the three in the boat reached the current it took prodigious strength and level-headedness to avert sudden wreck. The impact with the current resulted in the shipping of a good deal of water and put the lantern out but, with determination and skill, they made a slight, oblique progress and presently had as good a chance of reaching the far hank as of returning to the near. But though the men pulled upstream for dear life, their strenuous efforts scarcely even acted as a brake on their rapid rush downstream. Bert soon got his night eyes and, in the gleam of the water, saw that they were below the punt crossing, about halfway between Bool Bool and Three Rivers homestead, by which time they had hoped to be across.
When Mrs Mazere knew how far down river they had been carried and how swiftly they were being borne along, she felt for the first time the full danger and realised the extent of her impetuousness in risking the lives of her neighbours' sons.