h
was lost in a general roar.

A long pike-pole shot out, bit the end of the timber, and towed it to
the boom pile. Another man stepped on the log with Darrell. They stood
facing each other, bent-kneed, alert. Suddenly with one accord they
commenced to birl the log from left to right. The pace grew hot. Like
squirrels treading a cage their feet twinkled. Then it became apparent
that Darrell's opponent was gradually being forced from the top of the
log. He could not keep up. Little by little, still moving desperately,
he dropped back to the slant, then at last to the edge, and so off into
the river with a mighty splash.

"Clean birled!" commented my friend.

One after another a half-dozen rivermen tackled the imperturbable Dick,
but none of them possessed the agility to stay on top in the pace he set
them. One boy of eighteen seemed for a moment to hold his own, and
managed at least to keep out of the water even when Darrell had
apparently reached his maximum speed. But that expert merely threw his
entire weight into two reversing stamps of his feet, and the young
fellow dove forward as abruptly as though he had been shied over a
horse's head.

The crowd was by now getting uproarious and impatient of volunteer
effort to humble Darrell's challenge. It wanted the best, and at once.
It began, with increasing insistence, to shout a name.

"Jimmy Powers!" it vociferated, "Jimmy Powers."

And then by shamefaced bashfulness, by profane protest, by muttered and
comprehensive curses I knew that my companion on the other pile was
indicated.

A dozen men near at hand began to shout. "Here he is!" they cried. "Come
on, Jimmy." "Don't be a high banker." "Hang his hide on the fence."

Jimmy, still red and swearing, suffered himself to be pulled from his
elevation and disappeared in the throng. A moment later I caught his
head and shoulders pushing toward the boom piles, and so in a moment he
stepped warily aboard to face his antagonist.

This was evidently no question to be determined by the simplicity of
force or the simplicity of a child's trick. The two men stood
half-crouched, face to face, watching each other narrowly, but making no
move. To me they seemed like two wrestlers sparring for an opening.
Slowly the log revolved one way; then slowly the other. It was a mere
courtesy of salute. All at once Dick birled three rapid strokes from
left to right as though about to roll the log, leaped into the air and
landed squar