e hurried after him. "I'm afraid she's
no good; she's old and she's been stowed away all winter. Ten to one the
old thing leaks like a riddlin' sieve.

"But we mustn't lose a chance!" exclaimed Mac. "That jam will go out
within half an hour, if it doesn't within ten minutes!"

By this time the two had reached the shed. They quickly drew the bateau
from its wintering place, and taking the long, light boat upon their
shoulders, ran rapidly through the village and down to the river.

Meantime, two or three other men had run to fetch "dog warps" and
"towing-lines," a large number of which are always kept in these
backwoods lumbering hamlets, for use on the rivers and lakes, when logs
are rafted out in the spring.

Acting under Mac's prompt orders, a six-hundred foot warp was at once
made fast to a ring in the stern of a bateau, and another line laid
ready to bend to the first.

Jumping into the bateau, paddle in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for
instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the
skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should
direct--thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward the "jam" where
Jule stood.

Rod by rod, they let him down toward the roaring abyss of furious
waters, till the bateau--guided by the paddle, and held back now by the
main strength of twenty men--touched the ice-cake.

But even as it touched, the cake began to slide off the jam; and Jule
was thrown on his hands and knees.

Quick as thought, however, his courageous rescuer struck his boat-hook
into the ice and held fast while Jule, stiff with fright, tumbled in at
the bow of the bateau.

He was hardly in the boat when the whole mass of ice and logs went over
the falls.

A shout arose, and when a few minutes later the bateau was drawn safely
back up the stream, and Mac stepped ashore with a rather bashful smile
on his round, fresh face, every one joined in long and prolonged cheers.

As for Jule, he had to be helped out of the boat and led home; for he
was, as they said, "limp as a rag;" and it was noticed that after this
perilous adventure he was a much more sober and thoughtful boy.

Pray do not imagine, reader, that I have been telling you a "made-up"
story, for what I have related is true, the writer herself being an
eye-witness to the incident while a teacher in a backwoods
school-district on the banks of the Aroostook.

* * * * *

LIVE STOCK, Et