“I doubt but Kohiseva’ll be one too clever for him.  And the other—­who’s he?”

“Why, didn’t you know?  There he is standing over there; Olof, they say’s his name.”

“That one?  He looks a sight too fine for a lumberman at all.”

“’Tis him none the less for that.”

“What’s he doing in the gang, anyway?  ’Tis not his business, by the look of him.”

“Ay, you may say so, but there’s none knows more about him than all can see.  Book-learned, they say he is, and speaks foreign lingos, but Olof’s all the name he goes by.”

“H’m.  Must be a queer sort.”

“Ah, there’s more than one queer sort among these gangs.  But if any ever gets through the rapids, I say ’twill be him and no other.”

“Wait and see,” grumbled an adherent of the opposite party.

“Hey—­look! there’s old man Moisio pushing through to the foremen.  Now, what’s he want with them, I wonder?”

The foremen stood midway across the bridge.  One of them, Falk, was leaning against the parapet, puffing at his tasselled pipe, and smiling.  The other, Vantti he was called, a sturdy, thick-set fellow, stood with his hands in his pockets and a cigar between his teeth.  Vantti came from the north-east, from Karelen, and was proud of it, as he was proud of his Karelen dialect and his enormous Karelen boots—­huge, crook-toed thigh-boots that seemed to swallow him up to the waist.

Moisio came up to the two.  “What’s this about the rapids?” he said sternly.  “If you’ve put up a match, as they’re saying here, then I’ve come to say you’d better put it off before harm comes of it.  Five men’s lives the river’s taken here in my time.  And we’ve no wish for more.”

“Easy, Moisio,” says Vantti, taking the cigar from his mouth, and spitting a thin jet sideways.  “No call to take it that way.  ’Tis but a bit of a show we’ve got up to amuse the village folk.”

“Call it what you please,” answered Moisio.  “You’ll mark what I say.  I’m answerable for order in this place, and if any harm comes afterwards, I’ll call you to account for it.  ’Tis no lawful way, to risk men’s lives for a bet.”

“Moisio’s right,” cried several among the crowd.

The two headmen consulted in a whisper.

“Ay, if that’s the way of it,” says Vantti at last, and offers his hand.  Falk takes it, and turns to face the crowd.

“Listen,” he says aloud.  “Vantti, here, and I, we take you to witness that we’ve called off our bet here and now.  So there’s none can blame us afterwards.  If the two men who’ve entered for the match will cry off too, there’s an end of it.  If not, ’tis their own affair.”

All eyes were turned towards the two competitors, who stood facing each other, with their friends around.

One of them, a young man in a bright red coat, lifts his head boldly.  “I’m not afraid of drowning, and not going to drown,” he cries.