.

"They started their drive last night," Uncle Henry said, "and boomed her
just below the campsite. We'll go up to Dead Man's Bend and watch her
come down. There is no other drive betwixt us and Blackton's."

"Why is it called by such a horrid name, Uncle?" asked Nan.

"What, honey?" he responded.

"That bend in the river."

"Why, I don't know rightly, honey-bird. She's just called that. Many a
man's lost his life there since I came into this part of the country,
that's a fact. It's a dangerous place," and Nan knew by the look on her
uncle's face that he was worried.

Chapter XVIII. AT DEAD MAN'S BEND

Nan and her uncle came out on the bluff that overlooked the sharp bend
which hid the upper reaches of the river from Pine Camp. Across the
stream, almost from bank to bank, a string of gravel flats made a
barrier that all the rivermen feared.

Blackton was no careless manager, and he had a good foreman in Tim
Turner. The big boss had ridden down to the bend in a mud-splashed
buggy, and was even prepared to take a personal hand in the work, if
need be. The foreman was coming down the river bank on the Pine
Camp side of the stream, watching the leading logs of the drive, and
directing the foreguard. Among the latter Nan spied Rafe.

"There he is, Uncle!" she cried. "Oh! He's jumped out on that log, see?"

"He's all right, girl, he's all right," said Uncle Henry comfortingly.
"Rafe's got good calks on his boots."

The boy sprang from log to log, the calks making the chips fly, and with
a canthook pushed off a log that had caught and swung upon a small bank.
He did it very cleverly, and was back again, across the bucking logs, in
half a minute.

Below, the foreman himself was making for a grounded log, one of the
first of the drive. It had caught upon some snag, and was swinging
broadside out, into the stream. Let two or three more timbers catch with
it and there would be the nucleus of a jam that might result in much
trouble for everybody.

Tim Turner leaped spaces of eight and ten feet between the logs, landing
secure and safe upon the stranded log at last. With the heavy canthook
he tried to start it.

"That's a good man, Tim Turner," said Mr. Sherwood, heartily. "He's
worked for me, isn't afraid of anything, Ha! But that's wrong!" he
suddenly exclaimed.

Turner had failed to start the stranded log. Other logs were hurtling
down the foam-streaked river, aimed directly for the stranded one. They
wou