There was a big pool above him, lake-like and still, but it was too wide for any weary and shivering man to swim, and the wild, white rush of a rapid close below.

Alton glanced at both of them and a cluster of smaller trees across the river, and smiled somewhat grimly.
"Now I wonder," he said, "why the thing one wants the most is always on the other side." The firs behind him were great of girth, the smallest some distance from the bank, and he was weary; but loosing the straps about him, he dropped his burdens and fell to with the axe.

It was an hour before the tree went down, and at least another had passed before he had hewn off a portion.

Then very slowly and painfully he rolled it to the river with skids and levers cut in the bush.

He was breathless, and the perspiration dripped from him when at last it slid into the water and he seated himself astride, with his possessions on the wet bark in front of him.