ere the bridge knits together the two little villages of Pleasant
River and Edgewood, the glassy mirror of the Saco broadens suddenly,
sweeping over the dam in a luminous torrent. Gushes of pure amber mark
the middle of the dam, with crystal and silver at the sides, and from
the seething vortex beneath the golden cascade the white spray dashes up
in fountains. In the crevices and hollows of the rocks the mad water
churns itself into snowy froth, while the foam-flecked torrent, deep,
strong, and troubled to its heart, sweeps majestically under the bridge,
then dashes between wooded shores piled high with steep masses of rock,
or torn and riven by great gorges.

There had been much rain during the summer, and the Saco was very high,
so on the third day of the Edgewood drive there was considerable
excitement at the bridge, and a goodly audience of villagers from both
sides of the river. There were some who never came, some who had no
fancy for the sight, some to whom it was an old story, some who were too
busy, but there were many to whom it was the event of events, a
never-ending source of interest.

Above the fall, covering the placid surface of the river, thousands of
logs lay quietly "in boom" until the "turning out" process, on the last
day of the drive, should release them and give them their chance of
display, their brief moment of notoriety, their opportunity of
interesting, amusing, exciting, and exasperating the onlookers by their
antics.

Heaps of logs had been cast up on the rocks below the dam, where they
lay in hopeless confusion, adding nothing, however, to the problem of
the moment, for they too bided their time. If they had possessed wisdom,
discretion, and caution, they might have slipped gracefully over the
falls and, steering clear of the hidden ledges (about which it would
seem they must have heard whispers from the old pine trees along the
river), have kept a straight course and reached their destination
without costing the Edgewood Lumber Company a small fortune. Or, if they
had inclined toward a jolly and adventurous career, they could have
joined one of the various jams or "bungs," stimulated by the thought
that any one of them might be a key-log, holding for a time the entire
mass in its despotic power. But they had been stranded early in the
game, and, after lying high and dry for weeks, would be picked off one
by one and sent down-stream.

In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurr