Eben Sharrow rose to his feet, and, aided by his spiked boots, walked along the unsteady baulk of timber and seized hold of Silk's uplifted hand, raising him cautiously until they stood side by side. The lumber-man was then seen to be pointing here and there to the face of the jam that they were approaching.
"That's right; that's right," muttered Bob Wilson. "They c'n do it just thar', I reckon. Eben knows. They're sure safe now, if they jump quick."
For many moments of thrilling suspense the two men were hidden from sight between the dark brown walls of groaning, splintering logs. But presently Sergeant Silk's red tunic appeared like a flash of vivid light as he leapt from point to point, scaling the perilous face of the writhing pile of logs, followed by the man he had saved.
Silk's face was grim and pale, and he was breathing deeply when he strode along the bank in his dripping clothes, and he only nodded when Percy Rapson ran up to him with his hat and belt.
Half-an-hour later he was seated on a log in front of the fire, wrapped in his blanket and overcoat and sipping from a bowl of hot pemmican soup, while he watched Percy holding his steaming tunic to the warmth. On his knees lay his watch, his tobacco pouch, his pocket-book, and other possessions which he had taken from the pouches of his saturated clothes.
"Yes," he was saying. "That's the worst of getting into the water. It makes you so wet, and turns everything so messy. My 'bacca's all spoilt. Watch is stopped, too. First time it has stopped ticking for a couple of years."
"It would have been heaps worse if you yourself had stopped," declared Percy, without looking round. "You ran a frightful risk. And all for the sake of a worthless lumber-jack."
"No man's life is worthless, Percy," Silk said reprovingly, putting aside the soup bowl and taking up his pocket-book and opening it. "Snakes!" he exclaimed. "The people who sold me this pocket-book swore it was waterproof, and it's nothing of the kind! The papers are all wet."
"I hope that sketch of the canoe isn't spoilt," said Percy. "I should like you to give it me as a memento. May I have it?"
He glanced round now, and saw that Silk had spread out the drawing upon his knee, together with a fragment of white paper, which looked like the corner torn from an envelope, upon which there was a dull red stain.