n in quantity prevented the lower ends from rising;
the wide slant of the legs directed the pressure so far downward that
the horses were prevented from floating away. And slowly the bulk of
the water, thus raised a good three feet above its former level, turned
aside into the new channel and poured out to inundate the black-ash
swamp beyond.

A good volume still poured over the top of the temporary dam and down to
the fall; but it was by this expedient so far reduced that work became
possible.

"Now, boys!" cried Orde. "Lively, while we've got the chance!"

By means of blocks and tackles and the team horses the twenty-six-foot
logs were placed side by side, slanting from a point two feet below the
rim of the fall to the ledge below. They were bolted together top
and bottom through the four holes bored for that purpose. This was a
confusing and wet business. Sufficient water still flowed in the natural
channel of the river to dash in spray over the entire work. Men toiled,
wet to the skin, their garments clinging to them, their eyes full of
water, barely able to breathe, yet groping doggedly at it, and arriving
at last. The weather was warm with the midsummer. They made a joke of
the difficulty, and found inexhaustible humour in the fact that one of
their number was an Immersion Baptist. When the task was finished, they
pried the flash-boards from the improvised dam; piled them neatly beyond
reach of high water; rescued the sawhorses and piled them also for
a possible future use; blocked the temporary channel with a tree or
so--and earth. The river, restored to its immemorial channel by these
men who had so nonchalantly turned it aside, roared on, singing again
the song it had until now sung uninterruptedly for centuries. Orde and
his crew tramped back to the falls, and gazed on their handiwork with
satisfaction. Instead of plunging over an edge into a turmoil of foam
and eddies, now the water flowed smoothly, almost without a break, over
an incline of thirty degrees.

"Logs'll slip over that slick as a gun barrel," said Tom North. "How
long do you think she'll last?"

"Haven't an idea," replied Orde. "We may have to do it again next
summer, but I don't think it. There's nothing but the smooth of the
water to wear those logs until they begin to rot."

Quite cheerfully they took up their long, painstaking journey back down
the river.

Travel down the river was at times very pleasant, and at times very
disagreeab