Downward he floated, drawn swiftly and surely on by the deep, mighty rush of waters setting into the throat of the cataract. The heavy roar from far below sounded like the luckless lad's knell. He stood but a single chance--and that was hardly a chance--of his ice-raft lodging against a tilted-up "jam" of cakes and logs which had piled against a jagged ledge that rose in mid-stream, just above the brink of the precipice. This "jam" had hung there, wavering in the flood, for thirty-six hours. Every moment it seemed about to go off--yet still it clung, in tremor, as it seemed, at the fatal plunge which would dash it to pieces in the thundering maelstrom below. Good fortune--Providence, perhaps--so guided Jule's ice-raft that it struck and lodged against the "jam," just as the horrified watchers on shore expected to lose sight of the lad forever in the falls. "If it will only hang there!" muttered scores, scarcely daring as yet to speak a loud word. They could see the cake, with Jule on it, heaving up and down with the mighty rhythmic motion of the surging torrent; and all ran along down the banks, to come nearer. The boy stood in the very jaws of death. Beneath, the cataract roared and hurled up white gusts of spray. Just at this moment, a short, thick-set man, with a round, good-natured face, joined the crowd. For a moment he stood looking out at the lad, then slapping another young man on the shoulder, said, hurriedly, "Isn't there an old bateau stowed away in your shed, Lanse?" "Yes," was the reply. "Quick, then!" exclaimed the first speaker. "There isn't a moment to lose." "But, Mac," answered Lanse, as he hurried after him. "I'm afraid she's no good; she's old and she's been stowed away all winter. Ten to one the old thing leaks like a riddlin' sieve. "But we mustn't lose a chance!" exclaimed Mac. "That jam will go out within half an hour, if it doesn't within ten minutes!" By this time the two had reached the shed. They quickly drew the bateau from its wintering place, and taking the long, light boat upon their shoulders, ran rapidly through the village and down to the river. Meantime, two or three other men had run to fetch "dog warps" and "towing-lines," a large number of which are always kept in these backwoods lumbering hamlets, for use on the rivers and lakes, when logs are rafted out in the spring. Acting under Mac's prompt orders, a six-hundred foot warp was at once made fast to a ring in the stern of a bateau, and another line laid ready to bend to the first. Jumping into the bateau, paddle in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should direct--thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward the "jam" where Jule stood.