A hundred logs had piled up against the stoppage by
this time and there promised to be a bad time at the bend if
every one did not work quickly.
Before Nan and her uncle could reach the foot of the bluff,
Turner had regained consciousness and was sitting on a stranded
log, holding his head. Rafe, just as he had come out of the
river, was out on the logs again lending a hand at the work so
necessary to the success of the drive.
"Oh, dear me!" cried Nan, referring to her cousin, "he ought to
go home and change his clothes. He'll get his death of cold."
"He'll work hard enough for the next hour to overcome the shock
of the cold water. It's lucky if he isn't in again before they
get that trouble over," responded Uncle Henry. Then he added,
proudly: "That's the kind of boys we raise in the Big Woods,
Nannie. Maybe they are rough-spoken and aren't really parlor-
broke, but you can depend on 'em to do something when there's
anything to do!"
"Oh, Uncle!" cried the girl. "I think Rafe is just the bravest
boy I ever saw. But I should think Aunt Kate would be scared
every hour he is away from home, he is so reckless."
She was very proud herself of Rafe and wrote Bess a lot about
him. Slow Tom did not figure much in Nan Sherwood's letters, or
in her thoughts, about this time.
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