great matter to climb around. Meanwhile every foot of the rapid
offered a fascinating study to the river-man. This rapid seemed to go
against all the customary rules for rapids. Nowhere in all its torn
expanse could Stonor pick a channel; the rocks stuck up everywhere. He
noticed that one could have returned in a canoe in safety from the very
brink of the falls by means of the back-waters that crept up the shore.

His attention was caught by a log-jam out in the rapid. He had scarcely
noticed it the day before while searching for tracks. Two great rocks,
that stuck out of the water close together where the current ran
swiftest, had at some time caught an immense fallen tree squarely on
their shoulders, and the pressure of the current held it there. Another
tree had caught on the obstruction, and another, and now the fantastic
pile reared itself high out of the water.

At the moment Stonor had no weightier matter on his mind than to puzzle
how this had come about. Suddenly his blood ran cold to perceive what
looked like a human foot sticking out of the water at the bottom of the
pile. He violently rubbed his eyes, thinking that they deceived him.
But there was no mistake. It _was_ a foot, clad in a moccasin of the
ordinary style of the country. While Stonor looked it was agitated back
and forth as in a final struggle. With a sickened breast, he
instinctively looked around for some means of rescue. But he immediately
realized that the owner of the foot was long past aid. The movement was
due simply to the action of the current.

His brain whirled dizzily. A foot? Whose foot? Imbrie's? There was no
other man anywhere near. But Imbrie knew the place so well he could not
have been carried down, unless he had chosen to end his life that way.
And his anxiety to obtain food the night before did not suggest that he
had any intention of putting himself out of the way. Perhaps it was an
Indian drowned up-river and carried down. But they would surely have
heard of the accident on the way. More likely Imbrie. If his brain was
unhinged, who could say what wild impulse might seize him? Was this the
reason for Clare's premonition? If it was Imbrie, how could he tell her?

Stonor forced down the mounting horror that constricted his throat, and
soberly bethought himself of what he must do. Useless to speculate on
whose the body might be; he had to find out. He examined the place up
and down with fresh care. The log-jam was about half-a