being at once crowded out the moment it came to the exit. With a
desperate effort he succeeded in catching the log nearest to him,
pushing it ahead, and at last, just as they came opposite the cleft,
steering his own log into its place. The next second it shot quivering
forth into the sluice, and Henderson, with a sudden cold sweat jumping
out all over him, circled slowly past the awful cleft. A shout of
ironical congratulation came to him from the watchers on the brink
above. But he hardly heard it, and heeded it not at all. He was
striving frantically, paddling forward with one hand and backward
with the other, to steer his sluggish, deep-floating log from the
outer to the inner circle. He had already observed that to be on the
outer edge would mean instant doom for him, because the outward
suction was stronger underneath than on the surface, and his weighted
log caught its force before the others did. His arms were so bound
that only from the elbows down could he move them freely. He did,
however, by a struggle which left him gasping, succeed in working in
behind another log--just in time to see that log, too, sucked out into
the abyss, and himself once more on the deadly outer flank of the
circling procession.

This time Henderson did not know whether the watchers on the brink
laughed or not as he won past the cleft. He was scheming desperately
to devise some less exhausting tactics. Steadily and rhythmically, but
with his utmost force, he back-paddled with both hands and feet, till
the progress of his log was almost stopped. Then he succeeded in
catching yet another log as it passed and manoeuvring in behind it. By
this time he was halfway around the pot again. Yet again, by his
desperate back-paddling, he checked his progress, and presently, by
most cunning manipulation, managed to edge in behind yet another log,
so that when he again came round to the cleft there were two logs
between him and doom. The outermost of these, however, was dragged
instantly forth into the fury of the sluice, thrust forward, as it
was, by the grip of the suction upon Henderson's own deep log. Feeling
himself on the point of utter exhaustion, he nevertheless continued
back-paddling, and steering and working inward, till he had succeeded
in getting three files of logs between himself and the outer edge.
Then, almost blind and with the blood roaring so loud in his ears that
he could hardly hear the trampling of the falls, he hung on his