oom. 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 ashore.

"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 grass.

* * * * *

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 passed 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 pass, 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 unbuttoned, 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 clos