you like," says Olof. "'Twill do no harm."

The men take up their poles; those on the bridge look expectantly down
the river.

Kohiseva Rapids are a lordly sight in spring, when the river is full.
The strong arch of the bridge spans its powerful neck, and just below,
the rapids begin, rushing down the first straight reach with a slight
fall here and there. Then curving to the right, and breaking in foam
against the rocky wall of Akeanlinna--a mighty fortress of stone
rising straight up in midstream, with a clump of bushes like a helmet
plume on its top. The river then divides, the left arm racing in spate
down to the mill, the right turning off through a channel blasted
out of the rock for the passage of timber going down. A wild piece of
water this; the foam dances furiously in the narrow cut, but it ends
as swiftly as the joy of life; over a ledge of rock the waves are
flung a couple of fathoms down into the whirlpool called Eva's Pool.
Here they check and subside, the channel widens out below, and the
water passes on at a slower pace through the easier rapids below.

That is Kohiseva. The rock of Akeanlinna would be left untroubled were
it not for the lumbermen and their work. In the floating season, the
channel between it and the left bank is filled with timber, gathering
like a great bridge, against which new arrivals fling themselves in
fury, till they are drawn down through the cut.

The task which the rival champions have set themselves to-day is to
make their way down the upper rapids as far as Akeanlinna, and there
spring off--if they can--at the block--for there is no getting down
through the cut on a timber baulk, and none could go over the ledge to
Eva's Pool and live.

The men have taken up their places on the bank, and the two
competitors are preparing to start.

"Wouldn't it be as well to send a couple of baulks down first, for
whirlpools and hidden rocks?" suggests Olof.

"Ho, yes!" cries his rival. "And get a surveyor to mark it all out
neatly on a chart--a fine idea!"

Redjacket's party burst out laughing at this, and all looked at Olof.

He flushes slightly, but says nothing, only bites his lip and turns
away to study the river once more.

Redjacket looks at him sneeringly, and, pole in hand, steps out on to
the boom, a little way above the bridge. Then, springing over to the
raft, he chooses his craft for the voyage--a buoyant pine stem, short
and thick, and stripped of its bark.

The