uch-longed-for opportunity.

With great despatch he made himself a raft of two logs, and seating
himself astride them, with his legs in the water, put off from shore. He
shouted to his men to follow him, and they needed no urging. Viggo was
now near the middle of the basin, with twenty or thirty picked archers
close behind him. They fired volley after volley of arrows against the
enemy, and twice drove him back to the shore.

But Halvor Reitan, shielding his face with a piece of bark which he had
picked up, pushed forward in spite of their onslaught, though one arrow
knocked off his red-peaked cap, and another scratched his ear. Now he
was but a dozen feet from his foe. He cared little for his bow now; the
boat-hook was a far more effectual weapon.

Viggo saw at a glance that he meant to pull his raft toward him, and,
relying upon his greater strength, fling him into the water.

His first plan would therefore be to fence with his own boat-hook, so as
to keep his antagonist at a distance.

When Halvor made the first lunge at the nose of his raft, he foiled the
attempt with his own weapon, and managed dexterously to give the hostile
raft a downward push, which increased the distance between them.

"Take care, General!" said a respectful voice close to Viggo's ear.
"There is a small log jam down below, which is getting bigger every
moment. When it is got afloat, it will be dangerous out here."

"What are you doing here, Sergeant?" asked the General, severely. "Did I
not tell you to be the last to leave the shore?"

"You did, General," Marcus replied, meekly, "and I obeyed. But I have
pushed to the front so as to be near you."

"I don't need you, Sergeant," Viggo responded, "you may go to the rear."

The booming of the cataract nearly drowned his voice and Marcus
pretended not to hear it. A huge lumber mass was piling itself up among
the rocks jutting out of the rapids, and a dozen men hanging like flies
on the logs, sprang up and down with axes in their hands. They cut one
log here and another there; shouted commands; and fell into the river
amid the derisive jeers of the spectators; they scrambled out again and,
dripping wet, set to work once more with a cheerful heart, to the mighty
music of the cataract, whose thundering rhythm trembled and throbbed in
the air.

The boys who were steering their rafts against each other in the
comparatively placid basin were too absorbed in their mimic battle to
heed what was