“I get a wide,” he murmured.
He toddled to the handle he had so often seen the engineer pull when he wanted to start the saw to buzzing and the carriage to rolling along. There was a big log already in place.
Trouble pulled. At first nothing happened. He pulled again, harder than before. There was a hissing sound, a low rumble, and the saw began slowly to revolve. Then the carriage started gently forward.
“I do it!” cried Trouble in delight. “Now I get a wide!”
He ran to the far end of the log and carriage and sat down, pretending that he was astride his “horse.”
Trouble was having a ride! But it was a dangerous ride!
CHAPTER XIX
THE CURLYTOPS ADRIFT
Lucky it was for Trouble that Tod Everett, the foreman, caught the sound of the moving machinery—the creaking of the log carriage and the buzz of the big saw that was beginning to whine as if hungry to bite into the log on which the little boy was riding.
And as soon as Tod heard the sound of the machinery he knew something was wrong. One reason was because it was not yet time to start. Another reason was that the engineer of the mill was standing right beside him, talking about a new lot of logs that had been floated down the river that day.
The two men looked at one another as the sound came to their ears, and the foreman cried: