HOME AGAIN.
For so large a man the foreman showed an agility that was really wonderful, as he leaped from log to log with the swiftness and sureness of a chamois. He had been lumbering all his life, and there was nothing that fell to the lumberman's experience with which he was not perfectly familiar. Yet it is doubtful if he ever had a more difficult or dangerous task than that before him now. The "key-piece" of the jam was fully exposed, and once it was cut in two it would no longer hold the accumulation of logs together. They would be released from their bondage, and springing forward with the full force of the pent-up current, would rush madly down stream, carrying everything before them.
But what would Johnston do in the midst of this tumult? A few more moments would tell; for his axe was dealing tremendous strokes, before which the key-piece, stout though it was, must soon yield. Ah, it is almost severed. The foreman pauses for an instant and glances keenly around, evidently in order to see what will be his best course of action when the jam breaks. Frank, in an agony of apprehension and anxiety, has sunk to his knees, his lips moving in earnest prayer, while his eyes are fixed on his beloved friend. Johnston's quick glance falls upon him, and, catching the significance of his attitude, his face is irradiated with a heavenly light of love as lie calls out across the boiling current,—
"God bless you, Frank! Keep praying."
Then he returns to his work. The keen axe flashes through the air in stroke after stroke. At length there comes a sound that cannot be mistaken. The foreman throws aside his axe and prepares to jump for life; and, like one man, the breathless onlookers shout together as the key-piece rends in two, and the huge jam, suddenly released, bursts away from the rock and charges tumultuously down the river.
If ever man needed the power of prompt decision, it was the foreman then. To the men on shore there seemed no possible way of escape from the avalanche of logs; and Frank shut his eyes lest he should have to witness a dreadful tragedy. A cry from the men caused him to open them again quickly, and when he looked at the rock it was untenanted—Johnston had disappeared! Speechless with dread, he turned to the man nearest him, his blanched countenance expressing the inquiry he could not utter.
"He's there," cried the man, pointing to the whirl of water behind the body of logs. "He dived."
And so it was. Recognizing that to remain in the way of the jam was to court certain death, the foreman chose the desperate alternative of diving beneath the logs, and allowing them to pass over him before he rose to the surface. Great was the relief of Frank and the others when, amid the foaming water, Johnston's head appeared, and he struck out to keep himself afloat. But it was evident that he had little strength left, and was quite unable to contend with the mighty current. Good swimmer as he was, the danger of drowning threatened him.
Frank's quick eyes noticed this, and like a flash the fearless boy, not stopping to call any of the others to his aid, bounded down the bank to where the bonne lay upon the shore, shoved her off into deep water, springing in over the bow as she slipped away, and in another moment was whirling down the river, crying out at the top of his voice,—
"I'm coming! I'll save you! Keep up!"