Handicapped as he was with his overcoat, old Hector found it a
prodigious task to reach the boom; as he clung to the boom-stick he
could make out the figure of a man with a pike pole coming toward him
in long leaps across the logs. And then old Hector noticed something
else.
He had swum to the outer edge of the log boom and grasped the light
boom-stick, dozens of which, chained end to end, formed the floating
enclosure in which the log supply was stored. The moment he rested his
weight on this boom-stick, however, one end of it submerged
suddenly--wherefore The Laird knew that the impact of the motor-boat
had broken a link of the boom and that this broken end was now
sweeping outward and downward, with the current releasing the millions
of feet of stored logs. Within a few minutes, provided he should keep
afloat, he would be in the midst of these tremendous Juggernauts, for,
clinging to the end of the broken boom he was gradually describing a
circle on the outside of the log field, swinging from beyond the
middle of the river in to the left-hand bank; presently, when the boom
should have drifted its maximum distance he would be hung up
stationary in deep water while the released logs bore down upon him
with the current and gently shoulder him into eternity.
He clawed his way along the submerging boom-stick to its other end,
where it was linked with its neighbor, and the combined buoyancy of
both boom-sticks was sufficient to float him.
"Careful," he called to the man leaping over the log-field toward
him. "The boom is broken! Careful, I tell you! The logs are moving
out--they're slipping apart. Be careful."
Even as he spoke, The Laird realized that the approaching rescuer
would not heed him. He _had_ to make speed out to the edge of the
moving logs; if he was to rescue the man clinging to the boom-sticks
he must take a chance on those long leaps through the dusk; he _must_
reach The Laird before too much open water developed between the
moving logs.
Only a trained river man could have won to him in such a brief space
of time; only an athlete could have made the last flying leap across
six feet of dark water to a four-foot log that was bearing gently
down, butt first, on the figure clinging to the boom-stick. His caulks
bit far up the side of the log and the force of his impact started it
rolling; yet even as he clawed his way to the top of the log and got
it under control the iron head of his long pike pole drove into the
boom-stick and fended The Laird out of harm's way; before the log the
man rode could slip by, the iron had been released and the link of
chain between the two boom-sticks had been snagged with the pike hook,
and both men drifted side by side.
"Safe--o," his rescuer warned Old Hector quietly. "Hang on. I'll keep
the logs away from you and when the field floats by I'll get you
ashore. We're drifting gradually in toward the bank below the mill."
The Laird was too chilled, too exhausted and too lacking in breath to
do more than gasp a brief word of thanks. It seemed a long, long time
that he clung there, and it was quite dark when his rescuer spoke
again. "I think the last log has floated out of the booming ground.
I'll swim ashore with you now, as soon as I can shuck my boots and
mackinaw." A few minutes later he cried reassuringly, "All set,
old-timer," and slid into the water beside The Laird. "Relax yourself
and do not struggle." His hands came up around old Hector's jaws from
the rear. "Let go," he commanded, and the hard tow commenced. It was
all footwork and their progress was very slow, but eventually they won
through. As soon as he could stand erect in the mud the rescuer
unceremoniously seized The Laird by the nape and dragged him high and
dry up the bank.
"Now, then," he gasped, "I guess you can take care of yourself. Better
go over to the mill and warm yourself in the furnace room. I've got to
hurry away to 'phone the Tyee people to swing a dozen spare links of
their log boom across the river and stop those runaways before they
escape into the Bight and go to sea on the ebb."
He was gone on the instant, clambering up the bank through the bushes
that grew to the water's edge; old Hector could hear his breath coming
in great gasps as he ran.
"Must know that chap, whoever he is," The Laird soliloquized. "Think
he's worked for me some time or other. His voice sounds mighty
familiar. Well--I'll look him up in the morning."
He climbed after his rescuer and stumbled away through the murk toward
Darrow's mill. Arrived here he found the fireman banking the fires in
the furnace room and while he warmed himself one of them summoned
Bert Darrow from the mill office.
"Bert," The Laird explained, "I'd be obliged if you'd run me home in
more or less of a hurry in your closed car. I've been in the drink,"
and he related the tale of his recent adventures. "Your raftsman saved
my life," he concluded. "Who is he? It was so dark before he got to me
I couldn't see his face distinctly, but I think he's a young fellow
who used to work for me. I know because his voice sounds so very
familiar."
"He's a new hand, I believe. Lives in Port Agnew. I believe your man
Daney can tell you his name," Darrow replied evasively.
"I'll ask Daney. The man was gone before I could recover enough breath
to thank him for my life. Sorry to have messed up your boom, Bert, but
we'll stop the runaways at my boom and I'll have them towed back in
the morning. And I'll have a man put in a new boom-stick and connect
it up again."
Bert Darrow set him down at the Tyee Lumber Company's office, and wet
and chilled as he was, The Laird went at once to Mr. Daney's office.
The latter was just leaving it for the day when The Laird appeared.
"Andrew," the latter began briskly. "I drove that fast motor-boat at
full speed into Darrow's boom on my way down river this evening; I've
had a ducking and only for Darrow's raftsman you'd be closing down the
mill to-morrow out of respect to my memory. Bert Darrow says their
raftsman used to work for us; he's a new man with them and Bert says
you know who he is."
"I think I know the man," Mr. Daney replied thoughtfully. "He's been
with them about three weeks; resigned our employ a couple of weeks
before that. I was sorry to lose him. He's a good man."
"I grant it, Andrew. He's the fastest, coolest hand that ever balanced
a pike pole or rode a log. We cannot afford to let men like that
fellow get away from us for the sake of a little extra pay. Get him
back on the pay-roll, Andrew, and don't be small with him. I'll
remember him handsomely at Christmas, and see that I do not forget
this, Andrew. What is his name?"
"Let me think." Mr. Daney bent his head, tipped back his hat and
massaged his brow before replying. "I think that when he worked for
the Tyee Lumber Company he was known as Donald McKaye."
He looked up. The old Laird's face was ashen. "Thank you, Andrew," he
managed to murmur presently. "Perhaps you'd better let Darrow keep him
for a while. G--g--good-night!"
Outside, his chauffeur waited with his car. "Home--and be quick about
it," he mumbled and crawled into the tonneau slowly and weakly. As the
car rolled briskly up the high cliff road to The Dreamerie, the old
man looked far below him to the little light that twinkled on the
Sawdust Pile.
"She'll have his dinner cooked for him now and be waiting and watching
for him," he thought.