an he did to Turner, or to the men running down the bank to
seize upon and launch the heavy boat.

Rafe was suddenly balked and had to stop. Too great a stretch of water
separated him from the next floating log. Turner beckoned him on. It was
difficult to make the foreman hear above the noise of the water and the
continual grinding of the logs, but Rafe yelled some warning and pointed
toward the timber now almost upon Turner's foothold.

The man shot a glance behind him. The butt of the driving log rose
suddenly into the air as though it would crush him.

Turner leaped to the far end of the log on which he stood. But too
great a distance separated him from the log on which Rafe had secured a
foothold.

Crash!

Nan heard, on top of the bluff, the impact of the great timber as it was
flung by the current across the smaller log. Turner shot into the air
as though he were flung from a catapult. But he was not flung in Rafe's
direction, and the boy could not help him.

He plunged into the racing stream and disappeared. The huge timber rode
over the smaller log and buried it from sight. But its tail swung around
and the great log was headed straight down the river again.

As its smaller end swung near, Rafe leaped for it and secured a footing
on the rolling, plunging log. How he kept his feet under him Nan could
not imagine. A bareback rider in a circus never had such work as this.
Rafe rode his wooden horse in masterly style.

There, ahead of him in the boiling flood, an arm and head appeared.
Turner came to the surface with his senses unimpaired and he strove to
clutch the nearest log. But the stick slipped away from him.

Rafe ran forward on the plunging timber he now rode the huge stick that
had made all the trouble, and tried to reach the man in the water. No
use!

Of course, there was no way for Rafe to guide his log toward the
drowning man. Nor did he have anything to reach out for Turner to grasp.
The axe handle was not long enough, and the foreman's canthook had
disappeared.

Below, the men were struggling to get the big boat out from under the
bank into the stream. Two of them stood up with their canthooks to fend
off the drifting logs; the others plied the heavy oars.

But the boat was too far from the man in the river. He was menaced on
all sides by plunging logs. He barely escaped one to be grazed on the
shoulder by another. A third pressed him under the surface again; but
as he went down this seco