The foreman swore aloud.  “I’ll have that cursed rock out of the fairway next summer, if I have to splinter it.  Well, there’s nothing for it now; get your coffee, lads, and wait till it’s light.”

“Let’s have a look at it first,” cried a young, brisk voice in the crowd.  “Maybe we could get it clear.”

“There’s no clearing that in the dark,” said the foreman.  “Try, if you like.”

The young man sprang out on to the nearest point of the block, and leaped across actively, with lifted pole, to the middle.  Reaching there, he bent down to see how the jam was fixed.

“Hallo!” came a hail from the rock.  “It’s easy enough.  There’s just one stick here holding it up—­a cut of the axe’ll clear it.”

“Ho!” cried the men ashore.  “And who’s to cut it loose, out there in the dark and all?”

“Get a rope and haul it clear!” shouted the foreman.

“No use—­can’t be done that way.”

The young man came ashore.  “Mind if I lose the axe?” he asked the foreman.

“Lose a dozen and welcome, if you can get it clear.  Better than losing two hours’ work for fifteen men.”

“Right.  Give me an axe, somebody.”

“’Tis fooling with death,” cried one in the crowd.  “Don’t let him go.”

“How d’you reckon to get back?” asked the foreman.

“Upstream at first, and come down after, when it clears.”

“’Tis a mad trick,” muttered the men.

“I’m not telling him to go, but I won’t forbid him,” said the foreman, with emphasis.  “And if ’twas any other man I’d not let him try, but when Olof says he’ll do a thing it’s safe enough to be done.  Sure you can do it, lad?”

“Sure as can be.  Where’s the axe?”

He took the axe, and his pole, and balanced his way across to the rock, gliding like a shadow, up and down as the piled stems led.

“He’s pluck enough,” said one.

“He’s mad to try it,” murmured some of the others sullenly.

The shadow had reached the rock.  He laid the pole down at his feet, gave one glance upstream, and stood ready.  The axe-head flashed in the air, the echo of the stroke rang from the steep banks.  A second blow, and a third—­and then dead silence for a moment.

The men on the shore stood bending forward, straining their eyes to see.

The shadow by the rock stood up, grasping his pole, thrust the point lightly into one of the tangled baulks, and pressed with his left hand against the haft.  The right hand went up once more, the axe flashed and fell.  A thud as the blade came down, and a faint rushing sound....

The men on the bank held their breath and leaned forward again.

The shadow turned once more and cast a long, searching glance up the stream.  The right arm swung high, the axe flashed again....

A shrill, seething roar, like that of a rocket, was heard.  The mass of timber crashed and groaned, the water thundered like a beast in fury.