Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/155

 downward to the lake between him and Jasper Peak. Nicholas advanced to the very edge of the creek, stopped and looked back.

“You don’t mean that we are to cross that?” exclaimed Hugh in dismay, gazing down at the tossing water.

Such, however, was plainly Nicholas’ intention, for without further hesitation he plunged in and  began to swim across. The wild current caught him and whirled him down the stream, as Hugh  could just make out. The black mass of a floating log shot by and barely missed him, but none the less he struggled on and finally, a dim white  form in the dark, scrambled out upon the opposite bank.

What a dog could just barely accomplish was certainly impossible for a boy with a heavy pack. Hugh remembered that half a mile up the stream a huge tree had fallen across from bank to bank,  making a bridge by which he might get over if  the rush of the flood had not carried it away. Nicholas, whining with anxiety, followed along on the other shore, as Hugh made his way with