sheer bank to the brow of which a great pile of logs had been rolled,
ready for the real freshet in the spring when the log-drives would
start. She had a good view of all that went on across the river, and up
the stream.

Jennie suggested that she and Helen accompany Ruth and watch the taking
of the picture from that vantage point, a proposal to which Helen
readily agreed. But Ruth evaded this suggestion of her two friends, for
she wanted to keep her whole mind on her work, and when Helen and Jennie
were with her she found it impossible to keep from listening to their
merry chatter, nor could she keep herself from being drawn into it. The
upshot was that, after some discussion by the three girls, Ruth set off
alone for her station under the brow of the steep river bank.

About ten o'clock, in mid-forenoon, Hooley was satisfied that everything
was ready to shoot the picture. One of the foremen of Benbow Camp--the
best ax wielder of the crew--ran out on the boom to a point near the
middle of the frothing stream and began cutting the key-log. It was a
ticklish piece of work; but these timbermen were used to such jobs.

The gash in the log showed wider and wider. Where Ruth stood she cocked
her head to listen to the strokes of the axman. It seemed to her that
there was a particularly strange echo, flattened but keen, as though
reverberating from the bank of the river high above her head.

"Now, what can that be?" she thought, and once looked up the slope to
the heap of logs which were held in place by chocks on the very verge of
the steep descent.

If those logs should break away, Ruth realized that she was right in the