Tom gave another alarm shout, and jumped into a boat on the shore, followed by the Ojibway. It was a bateau that had been left there by Harrison, heavy to row, but the wind drove them fast in the wake of the raft. Laboring at the oars, Tom saw the outline of the floating timber growing clearer. His blood boiled with wrath; he knew that Harrison must have done this as a last act of revenge. They had not set eyes on the fellow for a week; they thought he had gone for good, but he had come back to retaliate for his loss. Well timed, too, his return had been. The raft was hardly built for rough seas. Under the full force of the gale in the center of the lake it might go to pieces, or be driven against the opposite shore and broken up, repeating the ancient history of the original raft of Dan Wilson.
Fortunately Charlie’s alertness had detected it in time. Tom was disconcerted at seeing that no stir was visible yet in the camp behind. His yells could not have been heard. It was useless now to try to shout in the teeth of the gale, but he strained his muscles to reach the raft.
It was too big to drift very fast, and Tom’s oars overtook it before it had gone another two hundred yards. It looked alarming as he came close, and it was going to be risky to get aboard, for the great mass of logs heaved on the waves, and crashed down on the water. A touch would have crushed the bateau-like bark, but Tom, watching his chance, jumped, landed on his knees, clutched the logs, and staggered to his feet. The boat with Charlie in it recoiled away, thrust backward by his leap.
He was scarcely up when he saw a dark figure shoot across the raft just behind him. Startled, Tom rushed after it. It flashed upon him that this must be Harrison. But the man jumped,—apparently over the side,—and a canoe went spinning away into the gloom, dipping and reeling in the heavy sea.
It had not looked like Harrison’s build. It had more resembled the woodsman McLeod. Tom had no weapon or he would have fired and by the time Charlie had joined him, carrying his shot-gun as always, the canoe was lost in the windy obscurity.
“Got away again!” Tom exclaimed in disgust. “But we’ve got the raft again, anyhow.”
Then he wondered what he was going to do with it. The huge mass of timber was beyond any control. He could only let it drive. Continually he had expected to see the men from ashore following him, but no one seemed to have become aware of what was going on. The sparks whirled up from the low fires, and that was all. Every minute the raft was getting farther from shore, and it would be impossible to tow it back against the wind. It was well out in the open lake now, and it heaved and swung up and down with a motion that strained all the fastenings of the cribs and made Tom’s stomach turn with a qualm like seasickness.
“Fire your gun, Charlie!” he said anxiously. “Maybe they’ll hear it. Hold on! What’s that?”
A report like a pistol-shot had sounded from the far forward end of the raft. Tom rushed forward over the heaving logs. In the center was a great heap of material used in building: withes, cross timbers, pike-poles, axes, ropes, spikes. As he passed around this obstruction he saw, to his horror, one of the cribs swing loose and drift clear, spilling its load of walnut as it went.
Was the raft breaking up already? Tom caught up a pike-pole and rushed forward. Buffeted by the wind and almost deafened by the noise of it and by the creaking and threshing of the timbers, he slipped and staggered in his unspiked boots over the wet logs. As he crossed the fourth crib he stopped with a thrill. He saw the dim figure of a second man close to the forward edge of the raft, with an ax poised over his shoulder.