a suspended iron sheet down in the
valley and drowsy voices rose up from among the clustered tents.
Summers went by shouting, "Get a move on, before we lose the bridge!"

Five minutes later Thurston, running across a bending plank, halted on
the rock which served as foundation for the main bridge pier. Beside
him Summers shouted confused orders to a group of struggling men. The
moonlight beat down mistily through the haze that rose from the river,
and Geoffrey could see the long wedge-headed timber framing that he had
built, beside the wing on the shore-side, so that any trunk floating
down would cannon off at an angle and shoot safely between the piers.
But one huge fir had proved too long for the pass, and when its butt
canted, the other end had driven athwart the point of the wedge, after
which, because the river was black with drifting logs, other heavy
trunks drove against it and jammed it fast. Panting men were hard at
work with levers and pike-poles striving to wrench the massive trunk
clear, and one lighted an air-blast flare, whose red glare flickered
athwart the strip of water foaming between the piers. It showed that
some of the logs forced up by the pressure were sliding out above the
others, while, amid a horrible grinding, some sank. One side of the
river was blocked by a mass of timber that was increasing every moment.
Thurston feared that the unfinished piers could not long withstand the
pressure, and he remembered that his own work would be paid for only on
completion. Nevertheless, he passed several minutes in a critical
survey, and then glanced towards certain groups of dark figures
watching for the approaching ruin.

"She'll go down inside an hour--that is certain, and Savine will lose
thousands of dollars," said Summers, whose eyes were wide with
apprehension. "I'm rattled completely. Can't you think of anything
that might be done?"

"Yes!" answered Thurston, coolly. "It is, however, almost too late
now. It could have been done readily, if the man who should have seen
to it had not turned traitor. Hello! Where's Mattawa Tom?"

A big sinewy ax-man from the forests of Northern Ontario sprang up
beside him, and Thurston said:

"I'm going to try to chop through the king log that's keying them.
It's rather more than you bargained for, but will you stand by me, Tom?"

"Looks mighty like suicide!" was the dry answer. "But if you're ready
to chance it, I'm coming right along."

The wor