Alfred raised his rifle to his shoulder and was in the act of pressing the trigger when he thought he heard a faint halloo.
Looking closer, he found he was not covering the smooth polished head adorned with the small tuft of hair, peculiar to a redskin on the warpath, but a head from which streamed long black hair.
Alfred lowered his rifle and studied intently the log with its human burden.

Drifting with the current it gradually approached the bank, and as it came nearer he saw that it bore a white man, who was holding to the log with one hand and with the other was making feeble strokes.

He concluded the man was either wounded or nearly drowned, for his movements were becoming slower and weaker every moment.

His white face lay against the log and barely above water.
Alfred shouted encouraging words to him.
At the bend of the river a little rocky point jutted out a few yards into the water.

As the current carried the log toward this point, Alfred, after divesting himself of some of his clothing, plunged in and pulled it to the shore.