Moncrossen clambered to the top to shout warning to those who swarmed over the body of the jam and along the edges of the river.
At the first bellowed orders of the boss, Bill Carmody had leaped onto the heaving jam and, following in the wake of others, began picking his way to the opposite shore.
New to the game, he had no definite idea of what was expected of him, so, with an eye upon those nearest him, he determined to follow their example.
To watch from the bank and see men whose boast it is that they "c'd ride a bubble if their calks wouldn't prick it," leap lightly from log to rolling log; hesitate, run its length, and leap to another as it sinks under them, nothing looks simpler.
But the greener who confidently tries it for the first time instantly finds himself in a position uncomfortably precarious, if not actually dangerous.
Bill found, to his disgust, that the others had gained the opposite bank before he had reached the middle, where he paused, balancing uncertainly and hesitating whether to go ahead or return.
The log upon which he stood oscillated dizzily, and as he sprang for another, his foot slipped and he fell heavily, his peavey clattering downward among the promiscuously tangled logs, to come to rest some six feet beneath him, where the white-water curled foaming among the logs of the lower tier.
Bill glanced hastily about him, expecting the shouts of laughter and good-natured chaffing which is the inevitable aftermath of the clumsy misadventure of a riverman. The bateau men were just gaining the shore and the attention of the others was engaged elsewhere, so that none noticed the accident, and, with a grin of relief, Bill clambered down to recover his peavey.
And Moncrossen, peering over the top of the jam, took in the situation at a glance—the river apparently clear of men, and the greener, invisible to those on shore, crawling about among the logs in the center of the pile.
It was the moment for which he had waited. Even the most careful planning could not have created a situation more to his liking. At last the greener was "his."