jamming into another log the steel swamp-hook with which the chain
was armed. When all was made fast, the horse started.

"She's a bumper!" said Bob. "Look out, Mike!"

The log slid to the foot of the two parallel poles laid slanting up
the face of the pile. Then it trembled on the ascent. But one end
stuck for an instant, and at once the log took on a dangerous slant.
Quick as light Bob and Mike sprang forward, gripped the hooks of the
cant-hooks, like great thumbs and forefingers, and, while one held
with all his power, the other gave a sharp twist upward. The log
straightened. It was a master feat of power, and the knack of
applying strength justly.

At the top of the little incline, the timber hovered for a second.

"One more!" sang out Jim to the driver. He poised, stepped
lightly up and over, and avoided by the safe hair's breadth being
crushed when the log rolled. But it did not lie quite straight and
even. So Mike cut a short thick block, and all three stirred the
heavy timber sufficiently to admit of the billet's insertion.

Then the chain was thrown down for another.

Jenny, harnessed only to a straight short bar with a hook in it,
leaned to her collar and dug in her hoofs at the word of command.
The driver, close to her tail, held fast the slender steel chain
by an ingenious hitch about the ever-useful swamp-hook. When Jim
shouted "whoa!" from the top of the skidway, the driver did not
trouble to stop the horse,--he merely let go the hook. So the power