t was sufficient if he could keep
pace with the rest of the wood-choppers, which was, after all, a thing
most men, reared as he had been, would certainly not have done. The
lust of conflict was upon him that night, and, balancing himself
ankle-deep in water on the trunk that heaved and dipped beneath him,
he swung the trenchant steel. He felt that he was pitted against great
primeval forces, and, with the gorged veins rising on his forehead and
the perspiration dripping from him, man's primitive pride and passions
urged him to the struggle.

How long it was before they had stripped the tree to a bare log he did
not know, but twice, as they toiled on, he saw a man splash into the
river, and, rising in the eddy beneath the submerged dam, crawl,
dripping, out again, and at length he found himself beside Mattawa,
whirling his axe above a widening notch, and keeping rhythmic stroke.
He knew he was acquitting himself creditably then, for Mattawa had
swung the axe since he could lift it, and there are men, and
mechanics, too, who cannot learn to use it as the Bushmen do in a
lifetime; but he also knew that he could not keep pace with his
comrade very long. In the meanwhile, he held his aching muscles to
their task, and the gleaming blades whirled high above their shoulders
in the pale light of the moon. As each left the widening gap the other
came shearing down.

The other men were now plying peevie and handspike at the butt of the
log, and he and Mattawa toiled on alone, two dim and shadowy figures
in the midst of the flood, until at last there was a rending of
fibres, and Mattawa leapt clear.

"Jump!" he gasped. "She's going."

Nasmyth jumped. He went down in four or five feet of water, and had
the sense to stay there while the log drove over him. Then he came up,
and clutching it, held on while it swept downstream into a slacker
eddy. There were several other figures apparently clinging to the butt
of it, and when he saw them slip off into the river one by one, he let
go, too. He was swung out of the eddy into a white turmoil, which
hurled him against froth-lapped stones, but at length he found sure
footing, and crawled up the bank, which most of his companions had
reached before him. When the others came up, he found that he was
aching all over, and evidently was badly bruised. He stood still,
shivering a little, and blinked at them.

"You're all here?" he said. "Where are those axes?"

It appeared that most of the