iver. There he stopped for several minutes, gazing about
him.

The flood came down before him stained green with the clay that
underlies the glaciers, and swollen by rain and snow. There was a big
pool above him, lake-like and still, but it was too wide for any weary
and shivering man to swim, and the wild, white rush of a rapid close
below. Alton glanced at both of them and a cluster of smaller trees
across the river, and smiled somewhat grimly.

"Now I wonder," he said, "why the thing one wants the most is always on
the other side."

The firs behind him were great of girth, the smallest some distance
from the bank, and he was weary; but loosing the straps about him, he
dropped his burdens and fell to with the axe. It was an hour before
the tree went down, and at least another had passed before he had hewn
off a portion. Then very slowly and painfully he rolled it to the
river with skids and levers cut in the bush. He was breathless, and
the perspiration dripped from him when at last it slid into the water
and he seated himself astride, with his possessions on the wet bark in
front of him. The device was a very old one, but there is a difficulty
attached to the putting it in execution, for it is needful to lean out
a little while using the propelling pole, and a log is addicted to
rolling round when anything disturbs its equilibrium.

Alton, of course, knew this, but when still some distance from the
opposite side, had apparently to choose between a somewhat perilous
effort and an unwished-for descent of the rapid. He glanced at its
foaming rush a moment, and then decided upon the former. Several times
he dipped the pole and won a yard with the strenuous thrust, and then
what he partly expected happened. The bark seemed to be slipping away
beneath him, and, as throwing himself forward upon his belongings he
flung an arm about it, the log rolled slowly, and there was a splash in
the water. He had restored the equilibrium, but one blanket and the
flour-bag were in the river. In another few minutes he waded ashore,
and drew the butt of the log out upon the shingle before he turned to
glance ruefully at the sliding water.

"If I went back and plunged for it I might get that flour," he said.
"Still, I should have to go down the rapid with it, and I mightn't want
it then."

Dripping from the waist with snow water, he reslung his traps, glanced
back at the sombre bush behind him and then plunged into that a