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 downstream.

In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurry at the foot of
the falls, one enormous peeled log wallowed up and clown like a huge
rhinoceros, greatly pleasing the children by its clumsy cavortings. Some
conflict of opposing forces kept it ever in motion, yet never set it
free. Below the bridge were always the real battle-grounds, the scenes
of the first and the fiercest conflicts. A ragged ledge of rock,
standing well above the yeasty torrent, marked the middle of the
river. Stephen had been stranded there once, just at dusk, on a stormy
afternoon in spring. A jam had broken under the men, and Stephen, having
taken too great risks, had been caught on the moving mass, and, leaping
from log to log, his only chance for life had been to find a footing on
Gray Rock, which was nearer than the shore.

Rufus was ill at the time, and Mrs. Waterman so anxious and nervous
that processions of boys had to be sent up to the River Farm, giving the
frightened mother the latest bulletins of her son's welfare. Luckily,
the river was narrow just at the Gray Rock, and it was a quite possible
task, though no easy one, to lash two ladders together and make a narrow
bridge on which the drenched and shivering man could reach the shore.
There were loud cheers when Stephen ran lightly across the slender
pathway that led to safety--ran so fast that the ladders had scarce time
to bend beneath his weight. He had certainly "taken chances," but when
did he not do that? The logger's life is one of "moving accidents by
flood and field," and Stephen welcomed with wild exhilaration every
hazard that came in his path. To him there was never a dull hour from
the moment that the first notch was cut in the tree (for he sometimes
joined the boys in the lumber camp just for a frolic) till the later
one when the hewn log reached its final destination. He knew nothing
of "tooling" a four-in-hand through narrow lane