"Jump!" screamed Dale. "Jump, for the love of Heaven, Owen!"
"Jump! Don't wait! Jump!" yelled Owen.
And then Owen jumped, far from the knob to the portion of the slide below him. It was a flying leap of over a rod, and when he landed he struck partly on his feet and partly on his left hand. Then from this crouched-up position he took another leap, very much as might a huge frog, and landing this time on his side, rolled over and over to the bottom of the slide.
The log was following swiftly and the swish of the flying snow and ice reached his ears plainly. It had scraped a bit at the knob, placing a fraction of a second of time in his favor. But now it came on, bound for the bank of the pond, straight for the young lumberman, as before!
It is said that in moments of extreme peril persons will sometimes do by instinct that which they might not have done at all had they stopped to reason the matter out. So it was with Owen in the present case.
A short while before, a boy belonging to one of the cooks of the camp had been fishing through a hole in the ice at the edge of the pond. The boy had made for himself a hole two feet in diameter, possibly reasoning that the larger the hole the bigger the fish he might catch. The hole was still there, although covered with a thin skim of ice.
As Owen reached the bottom of the slide, the force of gravitation carried him out on the pond, close to the hole. Directly behind him was the heavy log. To escape being struck a blow he knew would be a tremendous one, he dove directly into the hole and out of sight. Like a flash the log slid over the opening, went on across the pond, and brought up against the shore opposite with a crash to be heard a long distance beyond.