s a huge pool where
logs lie peacefully as alligators in the sun. At the end of the pool
the river flows gently in a channel free from rocks and snags. Then
the channel narrows, and a little farther on you behold the head of
the rapid, and half-way down the Coho Falls thunder everlastingly.
When the logs reach the falls they are meat for the mills. Nothing can
stop them then. One after another they rise on end to take the final
plunge. Some twist and writhe as if in agony, as if conscious that the
river and forest shall know them no more. Thousands have travelled the
self-same way; not one has ever returned. The lower rapid of the Coho
hardly deserves its name. Half a mile farther on it is an estuary
across which stretches the boom.

The crews assembled on each side of the pool. The logs were pricked
into slow movement. This being duffers' work was assigned to the less
experienced. The picked river-drivers stood upon the rocks of the
upper rapid, pole in hand. And here, watching them with a lack-lustre
eye, stood Mamie in the shade of a dogwood tree in full blossom. Now
and again a soft white petal would fall upon the water and be swept
away. Above the hemlocks soughed softly. At her feet the giant
maidenhair raised its delicate fronds till they touched her cheek.

She watched the logs go by in a never-ending procession. The scene
fascinated her, although, in a sense, she was singularly devoid of
either imagination or perception. Movement beguiled a woman whose own
life had been stagnant for five-and-twenty years. Deep down in her
heart was the unformulated but inevitable conviction that the logs
were moving and that she was standing still. Tom loomed large in the
immediate foreground. He, too, moved so swiftly that his huge form
lacked definition. She saw him snatch a pole from one of the men and
stab viciously at a log which refused to budge; and every time that
his arm rose and fell a little shudder trickled down her spinal
column. The log seemed to receive the blows apathetically. A bad jam
was imminent. She could hear Tom swearing, and the other logs floating
on and on seemed to hear him also, and tremble. His bull's voice rose
loud above the roar of the falls. Mamie looked down. At her feet
crouched Dennis, the dog, and he also was trembling at those raucous
sounds, and Mamie could feel his thin ribs pressing against her own
thin legs.

At that moment light came to her obscure mind. She was like the log.
She r