until the craft appeared to lurch out from under him, and fall bodily with a great splashing.  Twice, it seemed to him, she swung round a great black pool, and then they were driving forward again a trifle more smoothly, while here and there a stunted pine that clung to the rocks came flitting back to them.  He felt Okanagan’s paddle in his shoulder, and glanced round a moment.  There was a green strip behind them that seemed to roll itself together and fall roaring into the pool, but a wisp of mist that blotted out everything drifted across his eyes.

Seaforth retained no very clear impression of the remainder of that day’s journey, but it was late in the afternoon when the walls of rock fell back a little on either hand, and it seemed to him that they lay motionless in the bottom of a great pit while the hills slowly rolled away behind them.  Here and there a strip of shingle now divided rock from river, and when presently Okanagan called out, Seaforth felt by the change of motion that he was backing his paddle.  Looking forward he saw the cause of it, for there were boulders in the channel, and a great fir lay jammed across them.  They were almost upon it when the bows reached the shingle.

Okanagan helped him to carry Alton ashore, and then stood still looking at the fir, which was of a girth seldom seen in any other country.

“She’s lying right across, and we’ve got to chop our way through,” he said.  “You’ll fix the tent and make supper while I take first turn.”

He came back dripping presently, and Seaforth was waist-deep in icy water when he reached the tree.  The shingle slipped beneath him, the stream frothed about his limbs, and he felt very puny and helpless with that great log before him.  His hands were split and opened by the frost, and the wounds bled at every stroke, but while the red glare of the fire Okanagan was feeding with washed-up branches flickered about him he panted and smote, until the power went from him, and his comrade took his place.

It was apparently a task for demigods, but it is no unusual thing for the men who come to grips with nature unsubdued in the frozen North to attempt, and accomplish, more than flesh and blood seem capable of, and all night long they fought their grim battle, hewing until sight and breathing failed them, and then staggering back to lie dripping and gasping by the fire.  Arms grew powerless, eyes were dim, the rents in their wet hands gaped, and there was blood upon their deerskins; but little by little the notch widened, until at last the steel splashed in the water that deflected it, and Seaforth fancied they were beaten.  Still, there was no relaxing of effort, and as the stars were paling in the rift high overhead he heard a sound that was not the monotone of the river.  Another man heard it, too, for Okanagan came floundering towards him through a tumult of foam and wrested the axe from his hand.  For five minutes he smote fiercely, and then raised a hoarse, half-articulate cry of triumph.