He was outside in less than a minute and stood still looking about him, while the deluge lashed his face and beat his clothing against his limbs. He could only make out a blurred mass of climbing trees on one side, and a strip of foam cutting through the black level which he supposed was water, in front of him. His trained ears, however, gave him a little information, for the clamour of the flood was broken by a sharp snapping and crashing, which he knew was made by driftwood driving furiously against the boulders. In that region, the river banks are encumbered here and there with great logs, partly burned by forest fires, reaped by gales, or brought down from the hill-sides by falls of frost-loosened soil. A flood higher than usual sets them floating, and on subsiding sometimes leaves them packed in a gorge or stranded in a shallow to wait for the next big rise. Now they were driving down and, as Salter had said, jambing at the head of the rapid. Suddenly a column of fierce white radiance leaped up lower down-stream and Vane knew that a big compressed air lamp had been carried to the spot where the driftwood was gathering. Even at a distance, the brightness of the glare dazzled him, so that he could see nothing else when he headed towards it. He collided with a fir stump and struck it with his knee, and in another minute the splashing about his feet warned him that he was entering the water. Having no wish to walk into the main stream, he floundered to one side. He was, however, getting nearer to the blaze, and by and by he made out a swarm of figures scurrying about beneath it. Some of them had saws or axes, for he caught the gleam of steel, and broke into a run; and presently Carroll, whom he had forgotten, came up, calling to him. CHAPTER XX THE FLOOD. When he reached the blast lamp, which was raised on a tall tripod, Vane stood with his back to the pulsating blaze while he grasped the details of a somewhat impressive scene. A little up-stream of him the river leaped out of the darkness, breaking into foaming waves, and a wall of dripping firs flung back the roar it made, the first rows of serried trunks standing out hard and sharp in the fierce white light. Nearer where he stood, a projecting spur of rock narrowed in the river, which boiled tumultuously against its foot, while about half-way across the top of a giant boulder rose above the flood.