"See!" cried Percy Rapson excitedly, as the pile began to collapse. "The whole thing's moving now!"
It seemed, indeed, that the entire jam had started, but the watchers presently realised that it was only a section that had broken off. This section drifted downward for a distance of a hundred feet or so, and then came to a sudden stop, plugged just as tightly as it had been before, and leaving an open space of water, in which several loose tree trunks floated, just opposite to where Sergeant Silk and Percy Rapson stood with the watching crowd.
Suddenly Silk ran forward to the water's edge. He had seen that one of the lumber-men had fallen into the stream, and was clinging to one of the floating logs, struggling desperately to get a leg across it.
"Hey!" cried the sergeant at the top of his voice. "Make for the bank! Swim ashore, quick! That back section's moving!"
Even as he shouted there was an ominously loud crunching, rumbling sound of grinding timbers, and the back section of the jam began to break away.
Every one near saw and understood the man's terrible peril. He was caught between the two sections, and one of them was moving steadily towards him to crush him out of life.
"Who is it?" questioned Bob Wilson. "How'd he git thar'?"
"Fell in," answered Andy O'Reilly. "It's Eben Sharrow, and, say, he can't swim a stroke. Guess he's sure done for."
"Sure," nodded Wilson. "Ain't got a ghost of a chance. Best not look. Come away!"