"Get a rope and haul it clear!" shouted the foreman.
"No use--can"t be done that way."
The young man came ash.o.r.e. "Mind if I lose the axe?" he asked the foreman.
"Lose a dozen and welcome, if you can get it clear. Better than losing two hours" work for fifteen men."
"Right. Give me an axe, somebody."
""Tis fooling with death," cried one in the crowd. "Don"t let him go."
"How d"you reckon to get back?" asked the foreman.
"Upstream at first, and come down after, when it clears."
""Tis a mad trick," muttered the men.
"I"m not telling him to go, but I won"t forbid him," said the foreman, with emphasis. "And if "twas any other man I"d not let him try, but when Olof says he"ll do a thing it"s safe enough to be done. Sure you can do it, lad?"
"Sure as can be. Where"s the axe?"
He took the axe, and his pole, and balanced his way across to the rock, gliding like a shadow, up and down as the piled stems led.
"He"s pluck enough," said one.
"He"s mad to try it," murmured some of the others sullenly.
The shadow had reached the rock. He laid the pole down at his feet, gave one glance upstream, and stood ready. The axe-head flashed in the air, the echo of the stroke rang from the steep banks. A second blow, and a third--and then dead silence for a moment.
The men on the sh.o.r.e stood bending forward, straining their eyes to see.
The shadow by the rock stood up, grasping his pole, thrust the point lightly into one of the tangled baulks, and pressed with his left hand against the haft. The right hand went up once more, the axe flashed and fell. A thud as the blade came down, and a faint rushing sound....
The men on the bank held their breath and leaned forward again.
The shadow turned once more and cast a long, searching glance up the stream. The right arm swung high, the axe flashed again....
A shrill, seething roar, like that of a rocket, was heard. The ma.s.s of timber crashed and groaned, the water thundered like a beast in fury.
The shadow darted like an arrow over the shifting logs, slanting upstream and towards the sh.o.r.e. He was half across the fairway now, the pole swung round, the lithe body made a lightning turn, and he was borne downstream at a furious pace.
Suddenly he lost his footing, fell, and disappeared.
"Good G.o.d!" cried the men.
"What did I say?"
"I ought never to have let him go!"
The timber crashed and the water roared, the great logs rose and fell and tumbled one over another. Dark shadows hurried aimlessly hither and thither on the banks.
"Downstream, lads, down!" cried the foreman.
"Ready to give a hand if he"s carried insh.o.r.e. Out with the boat, quick!"
Shadows hurrying downstream....
"He"s up again!" came a sudden shout from the farther sh.o.r.e. All stopped.
And true enough, the daring lumberman was up again, hopping like a bird from one racing log to another as they thrust and elbowed their way down the rapids, rising and falling as in a loom. Then he settled to the practised lumberman"s easy poise on a log, and steered his way, with lifted pole and carefully balanced body, out of the rapids.
"Well done, well done!"
"Ay, that"s the sort. More eyes in his feet than many another in his head."
They crowded thickly round the lad as he stepped ash.o.r.e.
"What happened? How did you get up again?"
""Twas easy enough. Only the bark broke away under foot, the sticks themselves held fast. I was up again in a second--and the last part was worth it all," said the boy, with a laugh.
""Twas finely done," said the foreman. "But I don"t want to see it done again. You"ve done enough for to-night--go off and get a rest, and to-morrow too, if you like."
"Thanks," said the young man, looked at his watch with a sly chuckle, and flung down his pole on the gra.s.s.
Behind white curtains in a little room lay a young girl.
It was midnight, yet she had not slept. Something had happened that evening which kept her awake.
Strange--it was like a story or a dream; she had never heard of such a thing happening to any she knew. And now--she had only to shut her eyes, and it was there all over again, to the very life.
She had seen it that way many times already, till it was grown to something like a story. She had watched it happening, standing by, as it were, a looker-on, watching what pa.s.sed between the girl there and one other.
She was standing in the front room--the girl, that is--pouring the warm milk through a big strainer.
"They"re giving more milk already," thinks the girl, and laughs.
Then suddenly the door opens, and a crowd of lumbermen come hurrying through the room, going out to their night"s work. The girl stands with her back turned to them as they pa.s.s, answering over her shoulder the jests of the men as they go.
But the one that was last of all--he did not go on with the rest, but stayed, as if in wonder, looking at her. A tall, slender lad. His jacket was unb.u.t.toned, his cap a trifle on one side, and a mischievous expression played about his sunburnt face.
But the girl sees nothing, thinking the men have gone. And she, the looker-on, finds it strange that the girl should not see.... What is going to happen now?
Then the young man smiles, and steals forward noiselessly--the looker-on is all excitement now, and on the point of crying out to warn her.
Two hands reach out from behind and close gently over the girl"s eyes.