If he had only a rope, or anything to make a bridge—and then his eye fell upon a tall, dead pine "stub," barkless and almost branchless, standing a few feet back from the stream.
It was long enough to reach to the imperiled youth, if it could be felled so accurately as to lie close beside him. But a foot or two above or below him would make it useless, and to aim too closely would be to run a deadly risk of crushing the boy under the falling trunk.
By a queer vagary of his excited brain he remembered William Tell and the apple. He would have to perform a somewhat similar feat of marksmanship; but it was the only chance that he could think of. He plunged through the snow for his axe, wallowed back to the dead stub, and began to chop.
In the need for action his nerves grew suddenly cool. The feat was a more delicate one than he had ever attempted, and his brother's life hung upon his steadiness of nerve and muscle. But he cut quietly and without haste. The great yellow chips flew, and a wide notch grew in the trunk.
In a few moments he shifted to the other side, cut another notch, and sighted for the probable direction of the fall of the stub. He could not tell how the roots held. He would have to leave that important factor to chance, but he cut, now delicately, now strongly, till the tremor through the axe handle told that the trunk was growing unsteady.
It was a critical moment. He sighted again most carefully, and cut out a few small chips here and there. The stub tottered. It was standing poised upon a thin edge of uncut wood, and he stood behind it and pushed, cautiously, and then heavily.
The tall trunk wavered, and the fibres snapped loudly. It hesitated, bowed, and Allen leaped away from the butt. Down came the pine, roaring through the air.
It crashed into the water with a mighty wave and splash that hid boy and rock. Allen had a moment of horrified belief that his brother had been crushed under it. A moment later he saw that Louis was unhurt. But the tree had actually grazed the rock. It had fallen within eight inches of the boy's body.
It made a perfect bridge as it lay, but in his nervous reaction Allen was almost too shaky to walk the trunk and pull his brother out. He did it, although how he got him to land he never quite knew. Louis was almost unconscious, and his wet clothes froze instantly into a mass of ice.