Free How the West Was Won (1963) by Louis L'amour

water, Eve thrust a pole toward her, but Lilith failed in a wild, futile grab at the end of the pole, and was swept away. At the last, before she vanished from sight, they saw she had turned and was swimming strongly, half riding the current, fighting her way toward shore. Pa! It was Zeke. The tent's draggin' us! Cut her loose! Cut it away! Dropping his useless steering oar, Zebulon caught up his axe and, staggering across the plunging raft, he struck wildly at the entangling ropes. The canvas tent, acting like a huge sea anchor, was turning the raft broadside. He struck, and struck again. Wildly as he seemed to strike, he struck true; the ropes were slashed and the tent disappeared on the wind. An instant more and the whole raft might have been turned over, capsized in the wild water. Straighten her, pa! Straighten her! Zebulon started for the steering sweep and was thrown headlong. He felt a wicked blow across the skull, and then he was up and grasping the sweep just as the end of the raft struck a rock. It was a crashing blow that shook the raft its entire length, and then the current swung the stern around and the raft had turned end for end.
    With mounting horror, Zebulon saw that the jolt of the blow against the rock had snapped at least some of the binding cords, and the logs were spreading. Water showed between them. He shouted hoarsely, and dropped the useless oar to go to his wife, who was beside Sam.
    Grab holt! he shouted. Grab holt of a log! Eve heard her father shout, but she never knew what he said, for the next instant the logs parted beneath her and she was plunged down into the icy water.
    Logs smashed together above her. She struck out, fighting to escape them. Dead ahead of her one log struck a rock and the current lifted the butt end of it, turning it end over end. She heard screams, a hoarse cry, and she saw her father had an arm around Rebecca. Logs smashed together like the shot of a gun, and Eve felt the sharp sting of a flying chip as it struck her face. Then she struck out, swimming downstream and across.
    Glancing back upstream, she saw a log plunging toward her, and managed to avoid the charging butt end of it. As she grasped wildly at the rough bark she felt it tear at her hand, but somehow she got an arm over it and clung for dear life. The falls itself was only a few feet high-from shore it might have seemed like nothing at all. She went over, clinging to the log, and was still hanging on when she came to the surface. Suddenly the log was ceasing to plunge. Ahead there was a wide eddy and beyond it a place close in to the shore where the water was almost smooth.
    Freeing one hand, she brushed the wet hair back from her face. There was a low riverbank ahead, and on it lay something dark and still. Her throat tight with fear, she began to paddle with her free hand and kick with her feet to get the log closer in.
    When her feet touched bottom she let go of the log and, straightening up, splashed ashore. At the sound, the dark body quivered, and a head lifted. It was Sam ... and he was alive.
    She knelt beside him and he struggled to sit up. His body shook with a spasm of coughing, and he spat river water into the mud. Are you all right, Sam? Are you hurt?
    He shook his head, leaning it forward to his drawn-up knees. I'm all right.
    She turned her head, looking all about her, afraid of what she might see. Something-it was some distance off and might be a log-was caught in the brush along the shore. There was nothing else in sight. The hour was late and the sky was heavily overcast.
    Did they make it? Lil... have you seen Lil?
    She'd be miles upriver. She shivered in the cold wind. Sam, we've got to have a fire.
    Helping each other, they staggered to the edge of the trees where Eve gathered broken branches and debris cast up by high water. Near the roots of a great tree, she put together the wood for a fire. Tearing bark from a tree, she got at the dry inner bark and shredded it; then with a little