progress toward the shaping of a toy hand-sled, when, looking up from
his task, he saw something that mightily changed the face of affairs.
He threw away the half-shaped toy, thrust the knife back into his
belt, and rose to his feet. After a long, sagacious survey of the
flood, he drew his knife again, and proceeded to cut himself a stout
staff, a sort of alpenstock. He saw that an ice-jam was forming just
above the falls.

The falls of the Big Fork lie at a sharp elbow of the river, and cross
the channel on a slant. Immediately above them the river shoals
sharply; and though at ordinary seasons there is only one island
visible, at times of low water huge rocks appear all along the brink.
It chanced, at this particular time, that after the first run of the
ice had passed there came a second run that was mixed with logs. This
ice, moreover, was less rotten than that which had formed near the
falls, and it came down in larger cakes. When some of these big cakes,
cemented with logs, grounded on the head of the island, the nucleus of
a jam was promptly formed. At the same time some logs, deeply frozen
into an ice-floe, caught and hung on one of the unseen mid-stream
ledges. An accumulation gathered in the crook of the elbow, over on
the farther shore; and then, as if by magic, the rush stopped, the
flood ran almost clear from the lip of the falls, and the river was
closed from bank to bank.

The woodsman sat quietly watching, as if it were a mere idle
spectacle, instead of the very bridge of life, that was forming before
his eyes. Little by little the structure welded itself, the masses of
drift surging against the barrier, piling up and diving under, till it
was compacted and knit to the very bottom,--and the roar of the falls
dwindled with the diminishing of the stream. This was the moment for
which the man was waiting. Now, if ever, the jam was solid, and might
hold so until he gained the farther shore. But beyond this moment
every second of delay only served to gather the forces that were
straining to break the obstruction. He knew that in a very few minutes
the rising weight of the flood must either sweep all before it, or
flow roaring over the top of the jam in a new cataract that would
sweep the island bare. He sprang to his feet, grasped his stick, and
scanned the tumbled, precarious surface, choosing his path. Then he
turned and looked at the bear, wondering if that animal's woodcraft
were subtler than his own to