Tom cast another anxious glance over the water, ready to rescue his late enemy if he sighted him. But just then the front of the raft swung up and down with a tremendous plunge. Several withes gave way with snapping reports, and another crib disengaged itself from the main body. In his confusion and fright, Tom imagined the whole raft was going to pieces under him. The loose crib still hung by one end, however, and he rushed to the pile of material amidships, seized a bundle of rope, and looped one end over the head of one of the great hardwood pins in the loosened crib. Taking a hitch around another bolt-head on the main raft, he tried to bring the two sections together again. Assisted by the pull of the waves, he brought them together inch by inch, closed the gap to a foot’s width, tied the rope firmly, and repeated the lashing in two other places.
He glanced ashore, where there was still no sign of life. Bitterly now he repented his rashness in going in chase of the raft instead of immediately arousing the camp. But the bateau was still there.
“Get into the boat and make for shore as fast as you can, Charlie,” he commanded. “Rouse them up. Tell them the raft is going to pieces.”
“All right!” said the Ojibway, without emotion. “Can’t paddle much ’gainst wind,” he added. “Mebbe have to cross lake—go round.”
“Any way you like—only do it quick!” cried Tom; and just then another crib, whose transverse bar had split, began to break away.
Tom brought more rope and lashed this also, straining at it as Charlie got into the boat and cast off. He saw the Indian struggling hard against the wind and waves, and then lost sight of him in the darkness. Charlie would do the best he could, Tom knew well; it was only a question of whether he could bring help in time.
Another ironwood withe snapped. Fearing that all the cribs would break apart, Tom set to work to strengthen their fastenings. He dragged up the flattened pieces of timber that had been prepared for transverse and cap-pieces, laid them across the logs wherever there was any sign of weakening, and spiked them down with eight-inch spikes, which he drove home with an ax. Not content with that, he lashed the cribs together with rope as long as the rope lasted; then with odd pieces of chain, and then tried to use the withes. But the ironwood saplings were too stiff for one pair of hands to twist.
He ran to and fro, staggering and slipping on the reeling raft, and he looked almost hopelessly at intervals toward the shore. Nothing could be seen of Charlie’s boat. The Indian might have been driven far up the lake, and obliged to make a long detour by land. The camp-fire was nearly a mile away now. It was a mere red point, and there was no sign of any help coming.
The raft was now well into the middle of the lake, and it plunged and tossed fearfully. It had not been built for any such strains; it was threatening to go as the first raft had gone years ago. To keep it together was work for more than one man; and Tom was, after all, an inexperienced raftsman. Over the wet, swaying surface he hastened up and down, spiking down cross-bars and reinforcing the cap-pieces, but, despite his efforts, the timbers continually worked loose. In the darkness it was impossible to see a part giving way till it was almost beyond mending.
All at once, as he crouched over his work, he was aware of a faint glow on the sky. He looked up. One of the camp-fires ashore had sprung suddenly to a tremendous blaze—a vast, glaring flame blown into long streamers by the wind, whose light spread far out over the water, almost, indeed, to the raft itself.