“Shall we take him or hide?” asked Ted. Often when they did not want William to tag after them, the brother and sister would hide. After Trouble had tearfully searched for them, not finding them, he would go to his mother to be comforted. In this way Ted and Janet would find a chance to slip off where they wanted to go.
“Oh, let’s take him along—don’t hide from him,” said Janet, who had a soft spot in her heart for Trouble.
“Come on then,” invited Ted.
Soon the three children were wandering through the woods on the way to the lumber chute. The path was plain now, being much worn by constant use, and they could not get lost. So their mother was not worried about their trip, only warning them to be careful of Trouble.
“We will,” promised Janet.
Well, of course she meant to be, and so did Ted. But you never could tell what Trouble would do.
When the children reached the place they found that the men were away. The choppers had gone farther back in the woods to cut down more trees, having sent down the chute all that were near it.
That is, all the logs had been sent down but one, and this had stuck in the chute near the top, being balanced like a teeter-totter, or seesaw, on the very edge of the chute.
The log was perfectly balanced at the middle, half of it hanging down the chute and the other half extending over the end where the men stood to start the logs on their trip to the river, a hundred feet or more below.
Before Ted or Janet could stop him, Trouble had climbed up on the chute and had gotten astride the log. Then he found that it moved up and down, like a seesaw.