"Why?" queried Roger of Bulson, as he was cutting and shaping a gigantic wooden crowbar for himself, while a couple of the other men were hacking through the tree; "why is it necessary to take all that trouble after we have got by?"
"Supposing we got some distance down the river," was the reply, "where it wasn't easy to make a landing, and this jam broke above us and came pounding down the river, where would we be?"
"But it wouldn't be going any faster than the stream, and we could keep ahead of it with paddles."
"And if you came to a portage?"
"That's true," said Roger, "I hadn't thought of that. We might get nipped between the ice behind and rocks in front."
"You see," said Bulson, as he stepped on to the jam, "it's never wise to leave dangers at your heels."
The tree having been cut through, all save a few inches, one of the choppers returned to the shore, while the other stood ready, watching Bulson. The latter, who was standing on the blocks of ice behind the tree, was studying their positions, how they were jammed, and what was the best way to free them without getting caught himself in the resultant turmoil.
Presently he seemed satisfied for, inserting his huge crowbar between two pieces of ice, he yelled:
"Cut!"
The axman brought down his blade with his full strength three times, and the fibers of the tree cracked and began to give way. Back over the slowly moving tree came Magee, leaving Bulson alone on the jam. Suddenly the tree parted with a sharp crack and as it did so there arose a grinding roar, and the blocks of ice which had been jammed behind the tree seemed to leap up and fling themselves over the rapid. It did not seem possible that any man could ride that furious clashing of the jam, but Roger noticed that Bulson, making his way to shore over the grinding ice, yet had coolness to stop and give a shove here and a heave there, unlocking the jam, as it were, until, standing on the ice nearest the shore, he gave one last mighty shove and sprang to the bank just as with a seeming disappointed roar the whole jam broke and sped down the foaming river.