nd time, Rafe Sherwood threw away his axe and
leaped into the flood!

Chapter XIX. OLD TOBY VANDERWILLER

Nan was sure her Cousin Rafe would be drowned, as well as his foreman.
She covered her eyes for a moment, and could not look.

Then a great cheer arose from the men in the boat and those still
remaining on the bank of the river. Her uncle, beside her, muttered:

"Plucky boy! Plucky boy!"

Her eyes flew open and she looked again. In the midst of the scattering
foam she saw a small log over which her cousin had flung his left arm;
his other arm was around the foreman, and Rafe was bearing his head
above water. Turner had been struck and rendered senseless by the blow.

The small log slipped through a race between two shallows, ahead of the
greater timber. The latter indeed grounded for a moment and that gave
the victim of the accident and his rescuer a chance for life.

They shot ahead with the log to which Rafe clung. The men in the boat
shouted encouragement, and rowed harder. In a minute the boat came
alongside the log and two of the rivermen grabbed the boy and the
unconscious foreman. They had them safely in the boat, and the boat was
at the shore again in three minutes.

By that time the big boss himself, Mr. Blackton, was tearing out over
the logs from the other shore, axe in hand, to cut the key log of the
jam, the formation of which Turner had tried to prevent. A hundred logs
had piled up against the stoppage by this time and there promised to be
a bad time at the bend if every one did not work quickly.

Before Nan and her uncle could reach the foot of the bluff, Turner had
regained consciousness and was sitting on a stranded log, holding his
head. Rafe, just as he had come out of the river, was out on the logs
again lending a hand at the work so necessary to the success of the
drive.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Nan, referring to her cousin, "he ought to go home
and change his clothes. He'll get his death of cold."

"He'll work hard enough for the next hour to overcome the shock of the
cold water. It's lucky if he isn't in again before they get that trouble
over," responded Uncle Henry. Then he added, proudly: "That's the kind
of boys we raise in the Big Woods, Nannie. Maybe they are rough-spoken
and aren't really parlor-broke, but you can depend on 'em to do
something when there's anything to do!"

"Oh, Uncle!" cried the girl. "I think Rafe is just the bravest boy I
ever saw. But I should think A