Chapter XVIII. AT DEAD MAN'S BEND
Nan and her uncle came out on the bluff that overlooked the sharp bendwhich hid the upper reaches of the river from Pine Camp. Across thestream, almost from bank to bank, a string of gravel flats made abarrier that all the rivermen feared.
Blackton was no careless manager, and he had a good foreman in TimTurner. The big boss had ridden down to the bend in a mud-splashedbuggy, and was even prepared to take a personal hand in the work, ifneed be. The foreman was coming down the river bank on the PineCamp side of the stream, watching the leading logs of the drive, anddirecting the foreguard. Among the latter Nan spied Rafe.
"There he is, Uncle!" she cried. "Oh! He's jumped out on that log, see?"
"He's all right, girl, he's all right," said Uncle Henry comfortingly."Rafe's got good calks on his boots."
The boy sprang from log to log, the calks making the chips fly, and witha canthook pushed off a log that had caught and swung upon a small bank.He did it very cleverly, and was back again, across the bucking logs, inhalf a minute.
Below, the foreman himself was making for a grounded log, one of thefirst of the drive. It had caught upon some snag, and was swingingbroadside out, into the stream. Let two or three more timbers catch withit and there would be the nucleus of a jam that might result in muchtrouble for everybody.
Tim Turner leaped spaces of eight and ten feet between the logs, landingsecure and safe upon the stranded log at last. With the heavy canthookhe tried to start it.
"That's a good man, Tim Turner," said Mr. Sherwood, heartily. "He'sworked for me, isn't afraid of anything, Ha! But that's wrong!" hesuddenly exclaimed.
Turner had failed to start the stranded log. Other logs were hurtlingdown the foam-streaked river, aimed directly for the stranded one. Theywould begin to pile up in a heap in a minute. The foreman leaped toanother log, turning as he did so to face the shore. That was when UncleHenry declared him wrong.
Turner was swinging his free arm, and above the roar of the riverand the thunder of the grinding and smashing logs they could hear himshouting for somebody to bring him an axe. One of his men leaped toobey. Nan and Mr. Sherwood did not notice just then who this second manwas who put himself in jeopardy, for both had their gaze on the foremanand that which menaced him.
Shooting across on a slant was a huge log, all of three feet through atthe butt, and it was aimed for the timber on which Turner stood. He didnot see it. Smaller logs were already piling against the timber he hadleft, and had he leaped back to the stranded one he would have beencomparatively safe.
Mr. Sherwood was quick to act in such an emergency as this; but he wastoo far from the spot to give practical aid in saving Turner from theresult of his own heedlessness. He made a horn of his two hands andshouted to the foreguard at the foot of the bluff:
"He's going into the water! Launch Fred Durgin's boat below the bend!Get her! Quick, there!"
Old riverman that he was, Uncle Henry was pretty sure of what was aboutto happen. The huge log came tearing on, butt first, a wave of troubledwater split by its on-rush. Turner was watching the person bringing himthe axe, and never once threw a glance over his shoulder.
Suddenly Nan cried out and seized Uncle Henry's arm. "Look! Oh, Uncle!It's Rafe!" she gasped, pointing.
"Aye, I know it," said her uncle, wonderfully cool, Nan thought, andcasting a single glance at the figure flying over the bucking logstoward the endangered foreman. "He'll do what he can."
Nan could not take her eyes from her cousin after that. It seemed tobe a race between Rafe and the charging log, to see which should firstreach the foreman. Rafe, reckless and harebrained as he was, flew overthe logs as sure-footed as a goat. Nan felt faint. Her cousin's perilseemed far greater to her than that of the foreman.
A step might plunge Rafe into the foaming stream! When a log rolledunder him she cried out under her breath and clamped her teeth down onto her lower lip until the blood almost came.
"He'll be killed! He'll be killed!" she kept repeating in her own mind.But Uncle Henry stood like a rock and seemingly gave no more attentionto his son than he did to Turner, or to the men running down the bank toseize upon and launch the heavy boat.
Rafe was suddenly balked and had to stop. Too great a stretch of waterseparated him from the next floating log. Turner beckoned him on. It wasdifficult to make the foreman hear above the noise of the water and thecontinual grinding of the logs, but Rafe yelled some warning and pointedtoward the timber now almost upon Turner's foothold.
The man shot a glance behind him. The butt of the driving log rosesuddenly into the air as though it would crush him.
Turner leaped to the far end of the log on which he stood. But toogreat a distance separated him from the log on which Rafe had secured afoothold.
Crash!
Nan heard, on top of the bluff, the impact of the great timber as it wasflung by the current across the smaller log. Turner shot into the airas though he were flung from a catapult. But he was not flung in Rafe'sdirection, and the boy could not help him.
He plunged into the racing stream and disappeared. The huge timber rodeover the smaller log and buried it from sight. But its tail swung aroundand the great log was headed straight down the river again.
As its smaller end swung near, Rafe leaped for it and secured a footingon the rolling, plunging log. How he kept his feet under him Nan couldnot imagine. A bareback rider in a circus never had such work as this.Rafe rode his wooden horse in masterly style.
There, ahead of him in the boiling flood, an arm and head appeared.Turner came to the surface with his senses unimpaired and he strove toclutch the nearest log. But the stick slipped away from him.
Rafe ran forward on the plunging timber he now rode the huge stick thathad made all the trouble, and tried to reach the man in the water. Nouse!
Of course, there was no way for Rafe to guide his log toward thedrowning man. Nor did he have anything to reach out for Turner to grasp.The axe handle was not long enough, and the foreman's canthook haddisappeared.
Below, the men were struggling to get the big boat out from under thebank into the stream. Two of them stood up with their canthooks to fendoff the drifting logs; the others plied the heavy oars.
But the boat was too far from the man in the river. He was menaced onall sides by plunging logs. He barely escaped one to be grazed on theshoulder by another. A third pressed him under the surface again; butas he went down this second time, Rafe Sherwood threw away his axe andleaped into the flood!