“Try to hold her where she is!” Sam told his comrades.
Bending down, he caught the man by the shoulders, and with all possible care drew him from beneath the huge, imprisoning bar. The sufferer’s face was contorted with pain, but his grit didn’t fail him.
“Goo—good work, boys!” he gasped.
The three at the lever loosened their hold, and the tree settled back to its bed in the snow. Varley tore off his gay mackinaw. He was about to put it under the man’s head when Sam stopped him.
“Hold on! You’ve given me a hint. We ought to get him out of here and under shelter. And we need a stretcher.... Don’t roll up that jacket. Button it, though, and see that the sleeves are clear.”
Varley obeyed, wonderingly, while Sam stripped off his own overcoat.
“Get a couple of poles—good, straight ones!” he said curtly to Step and Poke.
The former had a big knife; the latter caught up the woodsman’s axe. In a moment each had cut a promising sapling and was lopping away the leafless branches.
Sam slipped an end of one of the poles inside Varley’s coat, and through the right sleeve. Then he repeated the operation with the other pole, this time, however, making use of the left sleeve. A moment more, and he had similarly disposed of his own overcoat at the other end of the poles, and was drawing the two garments close together. Thus he had an extemporized stretcher, with the coats as cover and the saplings as supports. It was not a handsome contrivance, but looked serviceable. The heavy outer jackets were of stout cloth, and the sleeves would prevent the poles from working loose.
And now came a difficult task—the placing of the sufferer on the stretcher. In this all the boys joined, doing their work as gently as they could. The woodsman did his best to help, but in spite of his pluck a deep groan burst from his lips, and his face was ashen when at last he lay upon the coats.