SAVED BY A FALLING TREE.

Winter still reigned, and Louis and Allen Wright were snowshoeing back to the lumber camp where they worked.

It was a small camp upon the Tobago River, near the Ottawa, close to the border between the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and the pine had for the most part been cut long ago. There was a little pine left, however, with a good deal of pulp wood and mixed timber to be got out, and the foreman had sent the boys to look over a patch of spruce about twelve miles from the shanty. They were returning with their axes upon the frozen Tobago River, which formed a convenient roadway through the tangled and snowy Canadian forest.

The boys were not professional "lumber jacks," but they were both deeply desirous of acquiring a couple of hundred dollars to cover the expenses of a course in mining engineering, and that winter high wages were being offered for even inexperienced men in the lumber camps.

As they were country-bred youths, they took to the work naturally, and Allen, although he had not yet come to his full strength, speedily developed a surprising dexterity with the axe. He could "lay" a tree within a few inches of where he desired it to fall, and had been the instrument of victory several times in lumbering matches with rival camps.

It was late in February and still bitterly cold, but the deep snow was packing and softening. In a few weeks the ice might break up, and mountains of logs were piled upon the river in readiness for the drive.

About three miles before it reached the shanty the river broke into rapids for about thirty rods before it fell tumultuously over a low ridge of rocks.

It was necessary to make a detour round this obstacle, and Allen went ashore at a cautious distance from the water. Louis, however, remained upon the ice, walking almost to the verge, and looking over into the inky stream.

"Be careful, Lou! That ice is getting rotten!" Allen shouted from the bank.

"It's as strong as rock. Look!" answered Louis, jumping in his rackets with a heavy thud upon the snow.

He proved the reverse of what he intended. There was a dull cracking under the snow and a startled shout from the reckless snowshoer. A great cake of ice broke off, drifting away, with Louis standing on it. He balanced unsteadily for a moment, staggered, and plunged off with a terrified yell, going clean out of sight under the icy water.

The cake of ice drifted over the rapids and broke up. Allen had scarcely time to move before his brother reappeared, struggling feebly, and evidently almost paralyzed by the cold immersion. By good luck he managed to catch the top of a projecting rock at the head of the fall, and there he clung, driven against the rock by the force of the current.

"Hold on a minute, Lou! I'll get you out!" screamed Allen frantically. Louis turned a blue face toward him, without answering.

Allen tore and kicked off his snowshoes, and was on the point of plunging into the water; but common sense returned to him in time. Louis was in the middle of the stream, thirty feet away. Allen could never reach him through that swift, deep current, and if he could, he would be so chilled as to be incapable of giving any sort of help.

But the boy certainly could not hold on long in his present position, and should he let go he would be swept over the rapids and under the ice at the foot. His life hung on seconds.

Allen could think of no plan. He shouted encouraging words without knowing what he said, while his eyes roved desperately up and down the snowy shores in search of some inspiration.

If he had only a rope, or anything to make a bridge—and then his eye fell upon a tall, dead pine "stub," barkless and almost branchless, standing a few feet back from the stream.

It was long enough to reach to the imperiled youth, if it could be felled so accurately as to lie close beside him. But a foot or two above or below him would make it useless, and to aim too closely would be to run a deadly risk of crushing the boy under the falling trunk.

By a queer vagary of his excited brain he remembered William Tell and the apple. He would have to perform a somewhat similar feat of marksmanship; but it was the only chance that he could think of. He plunged through the snow for his axe, wallowed back to the dead stub, and began to chop.

In the need for action his nerves grew suddenly cool. The feat was a more delicate one than he had ever attempted, and his brother's life hung upon his steadiness of nerve and muscle. But he cut quietly and without haste. The great yellow chips flew, and a wide notch grew in the trunk.

In a few moments he shifted to the other side, cut another notch, and sighted for the probable direction of the fall of the stub. He could not tell how the roots held. He would have to leave that important factor to chance, but he cut, now delicately, now strongly, till the tremor through the axe handle told that the trunk was growing unsteady.

It was a critical moment. He sighted again most carefully, and cut out a few small chips here and there. The stub tottered. It was standing poised upon a thin edge of uncut wood, and he stood behind it and pushed, cautiously, and then heavily.

The tall trunk wavered, and the fibres snapped loudly. It hesitated, bowed, and Allen leaped away from the butt. Down came the pine, roaring through the air.

It crashed into the water with a mighty wave and splash that hid boy and rock. Allen had a moment of horrified belief that his brother had been crushed under it. A moment later he saw that Louis was unhurt. But the tree had actually grazed the rock. It had fallen within eight inches of the boy's body.

It made a perfect bridge as it lay, but in his nervous reaction Allen was almost too shaky to walk the trunk and pull his brother out. He did it, although how he got him to land he never quite knew. Louis was almost unconscious, and his wet clothes froze instantly into a mass of ice.

He would certainly have lapsed into sleep and died, but Allen piled the pine chips about the stump and had a fire blazing in a few seconds. The dry stump burned like pitch, producing a furnace-like heat; and Allen partly undressed his brother and rubbed him hard with snow. Under this heroic treatment Louis came back to painful consciousness, and the fierce heat from the pine did the rest. But it was several hours before he was able to resume the tramp, and it was dark when they reached the shanty.