THE RIVERMAN

by Stewart Edward White

I

The time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river above along pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flatlower than it, stood a two-story mill structure. Save for a small, stump-dotted clearing, and the road that led from it, all else wasforest. Here in the bottom-lands, following the course of the stream, the hardwoods grew dense, their uppermost branches just beginning tospray out in the first green of spring. Farther back, where the higherlands arose from the swamp, could be discerned the graceful frond ofwhite pines and hemlock, and the sturdy tops of Norways and spruce. 

A strong wind blew up the length of the pond. It ruffled the surface ofthe water, swooping down in fan-shaped, scurrying cat's-paws, turningthe dark-blue surface as one turns the nap of velvet. At the upper endof the pond it even succeeded in raising quite respectable wavelets, which LAP LAP LAPPED eagerly against a barrier of floating logs thatfilled completely the mouth of the inlet river. And behind this barrierwere other logs, and yet others, as far as the eye could see, so thatthe entire surface of the stream was carpeted by the brown timbers. Aman could have walked down the middle of that river as down a highway. 

On the bank, and in a small woods-opening, burned two fires, their smokeducking and twisting under the buffeting of the wind. The first ofthese fires occupied a shallow trench dug for its accommodation, and wasoverarched by a rustic framework from which hung several pails, kettles, and pots. An injured-looking, chubby man in a battered brown derby hatmoved here and there. He divided his time between the utensils and anindifferent youth--his "cookee. " The other, and larger, fire centred arectangle composed of tall racks, built of saplings and intended for thedrying of clothes. Two large tents gleamed white among the trees. 

About the drying-fire were gathered thirty-odd men. Some werehalf-reclining before the blaze; others sat in rows on logs drawn closefor the purpose; still others squatted like Indians on their heels, their hands thrown forward to keep the balance. Nearly all were smokingpipes. 

Every age was represented in this group, but young men predominated. Allwore woollen trousers stuffed into leather boots reaching just to theknee. These boots were armed on the soles with rows of formidable sharpspikes or caulks, a half and sometimes even three quarters of an inch inlength. The tight driver's shoe and "stagged" trousers had not then comeinto use. From the waist down these men wore all alike, as though in auniform, the outward symbol of their calling. From the waist up was morelatitude of personal taste. One young fellow sported a bright-colouredMackinaw blanket jacket; another wore a red knit sash, with tasselledends; a third's fancy ran to a bright bandana about his neck. Head-gear, too, covered wide variations of broader or narrower brim, of higher orlower crown; and the faces beneath those hats differed as everywherethe human countenance differs. Only when the inspection, passing thegradations of broad or narrow, thick or thin, bony or rounded, restedfinally on the eyes, would the observer have caught again the caste-markwhich stamped these men as belonging to a distinct order, and separatedthem essentially from other men in other occupations. Blue and brownand black and gray these eyes were, but all steady and clear with thesteadiness and clarity that comes to those whose daily work compelsthem under penalty to pay close and undeviating attention to theirsurroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters, plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of the old-fashionedriver-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a moment's forgetfulnessof the sullen forces shifting and changing about him could mean forhim maiming or destruction. So, finally, to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots, " grew to seem part of the uniform, oneof the marks of their caste, the outward symbol of their calling. 

"Blow, you son of a gun!" cried disgustedly one young fellow with a redbandana, apostrophising the wind. "I wonder if there's ANY side of thisfire that ain't smoky!"

"Keep your hair on, bub, " advised a calm and grizzled old-timer. "There's never no smoke on the OTHER side of the fire--whicheverthat happens to be. And as for wind--she just makes holiday for theriver-hogs. "

"Holiday, hell!" snorted the younger man. "We ought to be down to Bull'sDam before now--"

"And Bull's Dam is half-way to Redding, " mocked a reptilian andred-headed giant on the log, "and Redding is the happy childhood homeof--"

The young man leaped to his feet and seized from a pile of tools apeavy--a dangerous weapon, like a heavy cant-hook, but armed at the endwith a sharp steel shoe. 

"That's about enough!" he warned, raising his weapon, his face suffusedand angry. The red-headed man, quite unafraid, rose slowly from the logand advanced, bare-handed, his small eyes narrowed and watchful. 

But immediately a dozen men interfered. 

"Dry up!" advised the grizzled old-timer--Tom North by name. "You, Purdy, set down; and you, young squirt, subside! If you're going to haveructions, why, have 'em, but not on drive. If you don't look out, I'llset you both to rustling wood for the doctor. "

At this threat the belligerents dropped muttering to their places. Thewind continued to blow, the fire continued to flare up and down, the mencontinued to smoke, exchanging from time to time desultory andaimless remarks. Only Tom North carried on a consecutive, low-voicedconversation with another of about his own age. 

"Just the same, Jim, " he was saying, "it is a little tough on theboys--this new sluice-gate business. They've been sort of expectin' achance for a day or two at Redding, and now, if this son of a gun of awind hangs out, I don't know when we'll make her. The shallows at Bull'swas always bad enough, but this is worse. "

"Yes, I expected to pick you up 'way below, " admitted Jim, whose"turkey, " or clothes-bag, at his side proclaimed him a newcomer. "Hadquite a tramp to find you. "

"This stretch of slack water was always a terror, " went on North, "andwe had fairly to pike-pole every stick through when the wind blew; butnow that dam's backed the water up until there reely ain't no current atall. And this breeze has just stopped the drive dead as a smelt. "

"Don't opening the sluice-gates give her a draw?" inquired the newcomer. 

"Not against this wind--and not much of a draw, anyway, I should guess. "

"How long you been hung?"

"Just to-day. I expect Jack will be down from the rear shortly. Oughtto see something's wrong when he runs against the tail of this jam ofours. "

At this moment the lugubrious, round-faced man in the derby hat steppedaside from the row of steaming utensils he had been arranging. 

"Grub pile, " he remarked in a conversational tone of voice. 

The group arose as one man and moved upon the heap of cutlery and of tinplates and cups. From the open fifty-pound lard pails and kettles theyhelped themselves liberally; then retired to squat in little groups hereand there near the sources of supply. Mere conversation yielded to anindustrious silence. Sadly the cook surveyed the scene, his arms foldedacross the dirty white apron, an immense mental reservation accentingthe melancholy of his countenance. After some moments of contemplationhe mixed a fizzling concoction of vinegar and soda, which he drank. Hisrotundity to the contrary notwithstanding, he was ravaged by agnawing dyspepsia, and the sight of six eggs eaten as a side dish tosubstantials carried consternation to his interior. 

So busily engaged was each after his own fashion that nobody observedthe approach of a solitary figure down the highway of the river. Theman appeared tiny around the upper bend, momently growing larger as heapproached. His progress was jerky and on an uneven zigzag, accordingas the logs lay, by leaps, short runs, brief pauses, as a rivermangoes. Finally he stepped ashore just below the camp, stamped hisfeet vigorously free of water, and approached the group around thecooking-fire. 

No one saw him save the cook, who vouchsafed him a stately andlugubrious inclination of the head. 

The newcomer was a man somewhere about thirty years of age, squarelybuilt, big of bone, compact in bulk. His face was burly, jolly, andreddened rather than tanned by long exposure. A pair of twinklingblue eyes and a humorously quirked mouth redeemed his countenance fromcommonplaceness. 

He spread his feet apart and surveyed the scene. 

"Well, boys, " he remarked at last in a rollicking big voice, "I'm gladto see the situation hasn't spoiled your appetites. "

At this they looked up with a spontaneous answering grin. Tom North laidaside his plate and started to arise. 

"Sit still, Tom, " interposed the newcomer. "Eat hearty. I'm going tofeed yet myself. Then we'll see what's to be done. I think first thingyou'd better see to having this wind turned off. "

After the meal was finished, North and his principal sauntered to thewater's edge, where they stood for a minute looking at the logs and theruffled expanse of water below. 

"Might as well have sails on them and be done with it, " remarked JackOrde reflectively. "Couldn't hold 'em any tighter. It's a pity that oldmossback had to put in a mill. The water was slack enough before, butnow there seems to be no current at all. "

"Case of wait for the wind, " agreed Tom North. "Old Daly will bered-headed. He must be about out of logs at the mill. The flood-water'sgoing down every minute, and it'll make the riffles above Redding a holyfright. And I expect Johnson's drive will be down on our rear most anytime. "

"It's there already. Let's go take a look, " suggested Orde. 

They picked their way around the edge of the pond to the site of the newmill. 

"Sluice open all right, " commented Orde. "Thought she might be closed. "

"I saw to that, " rejoined North in an injured tone. 

"'Course, " agreed Orde, "but he might have dropped her shut on youbetween times, when you weren't looking. "

He walked out on the structure and looked down on the smooth waterrushing through. 

"Ought to make a draw, " he reflected. Then he laughed. "Tom, look here, "he called. "Climb down and take a squint at this. "

North clambered to a position below. 

"The son of a gun!" he exclaimed. 

The sluice, instead of bedding at the natural channel of the river, had been built a good six feet above that level; so that, even with thegates wide open, a "head" of six feet was retained in the slack water ofthe pond. 

"No wonder we couldn't get a draw, " said Orde. "Let's hunt up oldWhat's-his-name and have a pow-wow. "

"His name is plain Reed, " explained North. "There he comes now. "

"Sainted cats!" cried Orde, with one of his big, rollicking chuckles. "Where did you catch it?"

The owner of the dam flapped into view as a lank and lengthy individualdressed in loose, long clothes and wearing a-top a battered old "plug"hat, the nap of which seemed all to have been rubbed off the wrong way. 

As he bore down on the intruders with tremendous, nervous strides, they perceived him to be an old man, white of hair, cadaverous ofcountenance, with thin, straight lips, and burning, fanatic eyes beneathstiff and bushy brows. 

"Good-morning, Mr. Reed, " shouted Orde above the noise of the water. 

"Good-morning, gentlemen, " replied the apparition. 

"Nice dam you got here, " went on Orde. 

Reed nodded, his fiery eyes fixed unblinking on the riverman. 

"But you haven't been quite square to us, " said Orde. "You aren't givingus much show to get our logs out. "

"How so?" snapped the owner, his thin lips tightening. 

"Oh, I guess you know, all right, " laughed Orde, clambering leisurelyback to the top of the dam. "That sluice is a good six foot too high. "

"Is that so!" cried the old man, plunging suddenly into a craze ofexcitement. "Well, let me tell you this, Mr. Man, I'm giving you all thelaw gives you, and that's the natural flow of the river, and not a thingmore will you get! You that comes to waste and destroy, to arrogate untoyourselves the kingdoms of the yearth and all the fruits thereof, let metell you you can't override Simeon Reed! I'm engaged here in a peacefuland fittin' operation, which is to feed the hungry by means of thisgrist-mill, not to rampage and bring destruction to the noble forestsGod has planted! I've give you what the law gives you, and nothin'more!"

Somewhat astonished at this outbreak, the two rivermen stood for amoment staring at the old man. Then a steely glint crept into Orde'sfrank blue eye and the corners of his mouth tightened. 

"We want no trouble with you, Mr. Reed, " said he, "and I'm no lawyer toknow what the law requires you to do and what it requires you not to do. But I do know that this is the only dam on the river with sluices builtup that way, and I do know that we'll never get those logs out if wedon't get more draw on the water. Good-day. "

Followed by the reluctant North he walked away, leaving the gaunt figureof the dam owner gazing after them, his black garments flapping abouthim, his hands clasped behind his back, his ruffled plug hat thrust fromhis forehead. 

"Well!" burst out North, when they were out of hearing. 

"Well!" mimicked Orde with a laugh. 

"Are you going to let that old high-banker walk all over you?"

"What are you going to do about it, Tom? It's his dam. "

"I don't know. But you ain't going to let him bang us up here allsummer--"

"Sure not. But the wind's shifting. Let's see what the weather's liketo-morrow. To-day's pretty late. "

II

The next morning dawned clear and breathless. Before daylight thepessimistic cook was out, his fire winking bravely against the darkness. His only satisfaction of the long day came when he aroused the men fromthe heavy sleep into which daily toil plunged them. With the first lightthe entire crew were at the banks of the river. 

As soon as the wind died the logs had begun to drift slowly out intothe open water. The surface of the pond was covered with the scatteredtimbers floating idly. After a few moments the clank of the bars andratchet was heard as two of the men raised the heavy sluice-gate on thedam. A roar of water, momently increasing, marked the slow rise of thebarrier. A very imaginative man might then have made out a tendencyforward on the part of those timbers floating nearest the centre of thepond. It was a very sluggish tendency, however, and the men watchingcritically shook their heads. 

Four more had by this time joined the two men who had raised thegate, and all together, armed with long pike poles, walked out on thefunnel-shaped booms that should concentrate the logs into the chute. Here they prodded forward the few timbers within reach, and waited formore. 

These were a long time coming. Members of the driving crew leapedshouting from one log to another. Sometimes, when the space acrosswas too wide to jump, they propelled a log over either by rolling it, paddling it, or projecting it by the shock of a leap on one end. Inaccomplishing these feats of tight-rope balance, they stood upright andgraceful, quite unconscious of themselves, their bodies accustomedby long habit to nice and instant obedience to the almost unconsciousimpulses of the brain. Only their eyes, intent, preoccupied, blazed outby sheer will-power the unstable path their owners should follow. Onceat the forefront of the drive, the men began vigorously to urge the logsforward. This they accomplished almost entirely by main strength, forthe sluggish current gave them little aid. Under the pressure of theirfeet as they pushed against their implements, the logs dipped, rolled, and plunged. Nevertheless, they worked as surely from the decks of theseunstable craft as from the solid earth itself. 

In this manner the logs in the centre of the pond were urged forwarduntil, above the chute, they caught the slightly accelerated currentwhich should bring them down to the pike-pole men at the dam. Immediately, when this stronger influence was felt, the driverszigzagged back up stream to start a fresh batch. In the meantime a greatmany logs drifted away to right and left into stagnant water, wherethey lay absolutely motionless. The moving of them was deferred for the"sacking crew, " which would bring up the rear. 

Jack Orde wandered back and forth over the work, his hands claspedbehind his back, a short pipe clenched between his teeth. To the edge ofthe drive he rode the logs, then took to the bank and strolled downto the dam. There he stood for a moment gazing aimlessly at the watermaking over the apron, after which he returned to the work. No cloudobscured the serene good-nature of his face. Meeting Tom North'stroubled glance, he grinned broadly. 

"Told you we'd have Johnson on our necks, " he remarked, jerking histhumb up river toward a rapidly approaching figure. 

This soon defined itself as a tall, sun-reddened, very blond individualwith a choleric blue eye. 

"What in hell's the matter here?" he yelled, as soon as he came withinhearing distance. 

Orde made no reply, but stood contemplating the newcomer with a flickerof amusement. 

"What in hell's the matter?" repeated the latter violently. 

"Better go there and inquire, " rejoined Orde drolly. "What ails you, Johnson?"

"We're right at your rear, " cried the other, "and you ain't even made astart gettin' through this dam! We'll lose the water next! Why in hellain't you through and gone?"

"Keep your shirt on, " advised Orde. "We're getting through as fast aswe can. If you want these logs pushed any faster, come down and do ityourself. "

Johnson vouchsafed no reply, but splashed away over the logs, examiningin detail the progress of the work. After a little he returned withinhailing distance. 

"If you can't get out logs, why do you take the job?" he roared, witha string of oaths. "If you hang my drive, damn you, you'll catch itfor damages! It's gettin' to a purty pass when any old highbanker fromanywheres can get out and play jackstraws holdin' up every drive in theriver! I tell you our mills need logs, and what's more they're agoin' toGIT them!"

He departed in a rumble of vituperation. 

Orde laughed humorously at his foreman. 

"Johnson gets so mad sometimes, his skin cracks, " he remarked. "However, " he went on more seriously, "there's a heap in what he means, if there ain't so much in what he says. I'll go labour with our oldfriend below. "

He regained the bank, stopped to light his pipe, and sauntered, withevery appearance of leisure, down the bank, past the dam, to the millstructure below. 

Here he found the owner occupying a chair tilted back against the wallof the building. His ruffled plug hat was thrust, as usual, well awayfrom his high and narrow forehead; the long broadcloth coat fell back toreveal an unbuttoned waistcoat the flapping black trousers were hitchedup far enough to display woollen socks wrinkled about bony shanks. Hewas whittling a pine stick, which he held pointing down between hisspread knees, and conversing animatedly with a young fellow occupyinganother chair at his side. 

"And there comes one of 'em now, " declaimed the old man dramatically. 

Orde nodded briefly to the stranger, and came at once to business. 

"I want to talk this matter over with you, " he began. "We aren't makingmuch progress. We can't afford to hang up the drive, and the water isgoing down every day. We've got to have more water. I'll tell you whatwe'll do: If you'll let us cut down the new sill, we'll replace it ingood shape when we get all our logs through. "

"No, sir!" promptly vetoed the old man. 

"Well, we'll give you something for the privilege. What do you think isfair?"

"I tell ye I'll give you your legal rights, and not a cent more, "replied the old man, still quietly, but with quivering nostrils. 

"What is your name?" asked Orde. 

"My name is Reed, sir. "

"Well, Mr. Reed, stop and think what this means. It's a more seriousmatter than you think. In a little while the water will be so low in theriver that it will be impossible to take out the logs this year. Thatmeans a large loss, of course, as you know. "

"I don't know nothin' about the pesky business, and I don't wan to, "snorted Reed. 

"Well, there's borers, for one thing, to spoil a good many of the logs. And think what it will mean to the mills. No logs means no lumber. Thatis bankruptcy for a good many who have contracts to fulfil. And no logsmeans the mills must close. Thousands of men will be thrown out of theirjobs, and a good many of them will go hungry. And with the stream fullof the old cutting, that means less to do next winter in the woods--moremen thrown out. Getting out a season's cut with the flood-water isa pretty serious matter to a great many people, and if you insist onholding us up here in this slack water the situation will soon becomealarming. "

"Ye finished?" demanded Reed grimly. 

"Yes, " replied Orde. 

The old man cast from him his half-whittled piece of pine. He closed hisjack-knife with a snap and thrust it in his pocket. He brought to earththe front legs of his chair with a thump, and jammed his ruffled plughat to its proper place. 

"And if the whole kit and kaboodle of ye starved out-right, " said he, "it would but be the fulfillin' of the word of the prophet who says, 'So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereavethee, and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bringthe sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it!'"

"That's your last word?" inquired Orde. 

"That's my last word, and my first. Ye that make of God's smilin' landwaste places and a wilderness, by your own folly shall ye perish. "

"Good-day, " said Orde, whirling on his heel without further argument. 

The young man, who had during this colloquy sat an interested and silentspectator, arose and joined him. Orde looked at his new companiona little curiously. He was a very slender young man, taut-muscled, taut-nerved, but impassive in demeanour. He possessed a shrewd, thinface, steel-gray, inscrutable eyes behind glasses. His costume was quitesimply an old gray suit of business clothes and a gray felt hat. At themoment he held in his mouth an unlighted and badly chewed cigar. 

"Nice, amiable old party, " volunteered Orde with a chuckle. 

"Seems to be, " agreed the young man drily. 

"Well, I reckon we'll just have to worry along without him, " remarkedOrde, striking his steel caulks into the first log and preparing tocross out into the river where the work was going on. 

"Wait a minute, " said the young fellow. "Have you any objections to myhanging around a little to watch the work? My name is Newmark--JosephNewmark. I'm out in this country a good deal for my health. This thinginterests me. "

"Sure, " replied Orde, puzzled. "Look all you want to. The scenery'sfree. "

"Yes. But can you put me up? Can I get a chance to stay with you alittle while?"

"Oh, as far as I'm concerned, " agreed Orde heartily. "But, " hesupplemented with one of his contagious chuckles, "I'm only river-boss. You'll have to fix it up with the doctor--the cook, I mean, " heexplained, as Newmark look puzzled. "You'll find him at camp up behindthat brush. He's a slim, handsome fellow, with a jolly expression ofcountenance. "

He leaped lightly out over the bobbing timbers, leaving Newmark to findhis way. 

In the centre of the stream the work had been gradually slowing down toa standstill with the subsidence of the first rush of water after thesluice-gate was opened. Tom North, leaning gracefully against the shaftof a peavy, looked up eagerly as his principal approached. 

"Well, Jack, " he inquired, "is it to be peace or war?"

"War, " replied Orde briefly. 

III

At this moment the cook stepped into view, and, making a trumpet of histwo hands, sent across the water a long, weird, and not unmusical cry. The men at once began slowly to drift in the direction of the camp. There, when the tin plates had all been filled, and each had found aplace to his liking, Orde addressed them. His manner was casual andconversational. 

"Boys, " said he, "the old mossback who owns that dam has come up hereloaded to scatter. He's built up the sill of that gate until we can'tget a draw on the water, and he refuses to give, lend, or sell us theright to cut her out. I've made him every reasonable proposition, butall I get back is quotations from the prophets. Now, we've got to getthose logs out--that's what we're here for. A fine bunch of whitewaterbirlers we'd look if we got hung up by an old mossback in a plug hat. Johnny Sims, what's the answer?"

"Cut her out, " grinned Johnny Sims briefly. 

"Correct!" replied Orde with a chuckle. "Cut her out. But, my son, it'sagainst the law to interfere with another man's property. "

This was so obviously humourous in intent that its only receptionconsisted of more grins from everybody. 

"But, " went on Orde more seriously, "it's quite a job. We can't workmore than six or eight men at it at a time. We got to work as fast as wecan before the old man can interfere. "

"The nearest sheriff's at Spruce Rapids, " commented some onephilosophically. 

"We have sixty men, all told, " said Orde. "We ought to be able to carryit through. "

He filled his plate and walked across to a vacant place. Here he foundhimself next to Newmark. 

"Hello!" he greeted that young man, "fixed it with the doctor allright?"

"Yes, " replied Newmark, in his brief, dry manner, "thanks! I think Iought to tell you that the sheriff is not at Spruce Rapids, but at thevillage--expecting trouble. "

Orde whistled, then broke into a roar of delight. 

"Boys, " he called, "old Plug Hat's got the sheriff right handy. I guesshe sort of expected we'd be thinking of cutting through that dam. How'dyou like to go to jail?"

"I'd like to see any sheriff take us to jail, unless he had an army withhim, " growled one of the river-jacks. 

"Has he a posse?" inquired Orde of Newmark. 

"I didn't see any; but I understood in the village that the governor hadbeen advised to hold State troops in readiness for trouble. "

Orde fell into a brown study, eating mechanically. The men began aneager and somewhat truculent discussion full of lawless and bloodthirstysuggestion. Some suggested the kidnapping and sequestration of Reeduntil the affair should be finished. 

"How'd he get hold of his old sheriff, then?" they inquired with somepertinence. 

Orde, however, paid no attention to all this talk, but continued tofrown into space. At last his face cleared, and he slapped down his tinplate so violently that the knife and fork jumped off into the dirt. 

"I have it!" he cried aloud. 

But he would not tell what he had. After the noon hour he instructeda half-dozen men to provide themselves with saws, axes, picks, andshovels, and all marched in the direction of the mill. 

When within a hundred yards or so of that structure the advancingriverman saw the lank, black figure of the mill owner flap into sight, astride a bony old horse, and clatter away, coat-tails flying, up theroad and into the waiting forest. 

"Now, boys!" cried Orde crisply. "He'll be back in an hour with thesheriff. Lively!" He rapidly designated ten men of his crew. "You boysget to work and make things hum. Get as much done as you can before thesheriff comes. "

"He'll have to bring all of Spruce County to get me, " commented one ofthose chosen, spitting on his hands. 

"Me, too!" said others. 

"Now, listen, " said Orde, holding them with an impressive gesture. "Whenthat sheriff comes, with or without a posse, I want you to go peaceably. Understand?"

"Cave in? Not much!" cried Purdy. 

"See here, " and Orde drew them aside to an earnest, low-voicedconversation that lasted several minutes. When he had finished heclapped each of them on the back, and all moved off, laughing, to thedam. 

"Now, boys, " he commanded the others, "no row without orders. Understand? If there's going to be a fight, I'll give you the wordwhen. "

The chopping crew descended to the bottom of the sluice, the gate ofwhich had been shut, and began immediately to chop away at the apron. As the water in the pond above had been drawn low by the morning's work, none overflowed the gate, so the men were enabled to work dry. Below theapron, of course, had been filled in with earth and stones. As soonas the axe-men had effected an entry to this deposit, other men withshovels and picks began to remove the filling. 

The work had continued nearly an hour when Orde commanded the fifty ormore idlers back to camp. 

"Get out, boys, " he ordered. "The sheriff will be here pretty quick now, and I don't want any row. Get out of sight. "

"And leave them to fight her out alone? Guess not!" grumbled a tall, burly individual with a red face. 

Orde immediately walked directly to this man. 

"Am I bossing this drive, or am I not?" he demanded. 

The riverman growled something. 

SMACK! SMACK! sounded Orde's fists. The man, taken by surprise, wentdown in a heap, but immediately rebounded to his feet as though madeof rubber. But Orde had seized a peavy, and stood over against hisantagonist, the murderous weapon upraised. 

"Lie down, you hound, or I'll brain you!" he roared at the top strengthof his great voice. "Want fight, do you? Well, you won't have to waittill the sheriff gets here! You make a move!"

For a full half minute the man crouched breathless, and Orde, his ruddyface congested, held his threatening attitude. Then he dropped his peavyand stepped aside. 

"March!" he commanded. "Get your turkey and hit the hay trail. You'llget your time at Redding. "

The man sullenly arose and slouched away, grumbling under his breath. Orde watched him from sight, then turned to the silent group, a newcrispness in his manner. 

"Well?" he demanded. 

Hesitating, they turned to the river trail, leaving the ten stillworking at the sluice. When well within the fringe of the brush, Ordecalled a halt. His customary good-humour seemed quite restored. 

"Now, boys, " he commanded, "squat down and lay low. You give me an ache!Don't you suppose I got this thing all figured out? If fight would doany good, you know mighty well I'd fight. And the boys won't be in jailany longer than it takes to get a wire to Daly to bail them out. Smokeup, and don't bother. "

They filled their pipes and settled down to an enjoyment of thesituation. Ordinarily from very early in the morning until very late atnight the riverman is busy every instant at his dangerous and absorbingwork. Those affairs which do not immediately concern his task--as theswiftness of rapids, the state of flood, the curves of streams, theheight of water, the obstructions of channels, the quantities oflogs--pass by the outer fringe of his consciousness, if indeed theyreach him at all. Thus, often he works all day up to his waist in acurrent bearing the rotten ice of the first break-up, or endures thedrenching of an early spring rain, or battles the rigours of abelated snow with apparent indifference. You or I would be exceedinglyuncomfortable; would require an effort of fortitude to make the plunge. Yet these men, absorbed in the mighty problems of their task, havelittle attention to spare to such things. The cold, the wet, thediscomfort, the hunger, the weariness, all pass as shadows on thebackground. In like manner the softer moods of the spring rarelypenetrate through the concentration of faculties on the work. The warmsun shines; the birds by thousands flutter and twitter and sing theirway north; the delicate green of spring, showered from the hand of thepassing Sower, sprinkles the tops of the trees, and gradually sifts downthrough the branches; the great, beautiful silver clouds sail downthe horizon like ships of a statelier age, as totally without actualexistence to these men. The logs, the river--those are enough to strainall the faculties a man possesses, and more. 

So when, as now, a chance combination of circumstances brings themleisure to look about them, the forest and the world of out-of-doorscomes to them with a freshness impossible for the city dweller torealise. The surroundings are accustomed, but they bring new messages. To most of them, these impressions never reach the point of coherency. They brood, and muse, and expand in the actual and figurative warmth, and proffer the general opinion that it is a damn fine day!

Another full half hour elapsed before the situation developed further. Then Tom North's friend Jim, who had gathered his long figure on the topof a stump, unclasped his knees and remarked that old Plug Hat was back. 

The men arose to their feet and peered cautiously through the brush. They saw Reed, accompanied by a thick-set man whom some recognised asthe sheriff of the county, approach the edge of the dam. A moment laterthe working crew mounted to the top, stacked their tools neatly, resumedtheir coats and jackets, and departed up the road in convoy of thesheriff. 

A gasp of astonishment broke from the concealed rivermen. 

"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated one. "What are we comin' to? That'sthe first time I ever see one lonesome sheriff gather in ten river-hogswithout the aid of a gatlin' or an ambulance! What's the matter withthat chicken-livered bunch, anyway?"

Orde watched them, his eyes expressionless, until they had disappearedin the fringe of the forest Then he turned to the astonished group. 

"Jim, " said he, "and you, Ellis, and you, and you, and you, and you, get to work on that dam. And remember this, if you are arrested, gopeaceably. Any resistance will spoil the whole game. "

The men broke into mingled cheers and laughter as the full significanceof Orde's plan reached them. They streamed back to the dam, where theyperched proffering advice and encouragement to those about to descend. 

Immediately, however, Reed was out, his eyes blazing either side hishawk nose. 

"Here!" he cried, "quit that! I'll have ye arrested!"

"Arrest ahead, " replied Orde coldly. 

Reed stormed back and forth for a moment, then departed at full speed upthe road. 

"Now, boys, get as much done as possible, " urged Orde. "We better getback in the brush, or he may try to take in the whole b'iling of us onsome sort of a blanket warrant. "

"How about the other boys?" inquired North. 

"I gave one of them a telegram to send to Daly, " replied Orde. "Dalywill be up to bail them out. "

Once more they hid in the woods; and again, after a longer interval, themill owner and the sheriff reappeared. Reed appeared to be expostulatingviolently, and a number of times pointed up river; but the sheriff wentahead stolidly to the dam, summoned those working below, and departedup the road as before. Reed stood uncertain until he saw the rivermenbeginning to re-emerge from the brush, then followed the officer at topspeed. 

Without the necessity of command, a half-dozen men leaped down on theapron. The previous crews had made considerable progress in weakeningthe heavy supports. As soon as these should be cut out and the backingremoved, the mere sawing through of the massive sill should carry awaythe whole obstruction. 

"Next time will decide it, " remarked Orde. "If the sheriff brings aposse and sits down to lay for us, of course we won't be able to getnear to finish the job. "

"I didn't think that of George Morris, " commented Sims in an aggrievedway. "He was a riverman himself once before he was sheriff. "

"He's got to obey orders, and serve a warrant when it's issued, ofcourse, " replied Orde to this. "What did you expect?"

At the end of another hour, which brought the time to four o'clock, thesheriff made his third appearance--this time in a side-bar buggy. 

"I wish I dared join that confab, " said Orde, "and hear what's going on, but I'm afraid he'd jug me sure. "

"He wouldn't jug me, " spoke up Newmark. "I'll go down. "

"Bully for you!" agreed Orde. 

The young man departed in his precise, methodical manner, picking hisway rather mincingly among the inequalities of the trail. In spite ofthe worn and wrinkled condition of his garments, they retained somethingof a city hang and smartness that sharply differentiated their wearerfrom even the well-dressed citizens of a smaller town. They seemed tomatch the refined, shrewd, but cold intelligence of his lean and nervousface. 

About sunset he returned from a scene which the distant spectators hadwatched with breathless interest. It was in essence only a repetition ofthe two that had preceded it, but Reed had evidently gone almost to thepoint of violence in his insistence, and the sheriff had shaken himoff rudely. Finally, Morris and his six prisoners had trailed away. Thesheriff and North's friend occupied the seat of the buggy, while theother five trudged peaceably alongside. Once again Reed clattered awayon his bony steed, but this time ahead of the official party. 

With a whoop the river crew, now reduced to a scant dozen, rushed downto meet the too deliberate Newmark. 

"Well?" they demanded, crowding about him. 

"Reed wanted the sheriff to stay and protect the dam, " reported Newmarkin his brief, dry manner. "Sheriff refused. Said his duty was simplyto arrest on warrant, and as often as Reed got out warrants, he'd servethem. Reed said, then, he should get a posse and hunt up Orde and therest of them. Sheriff replied that as far as he could see, the terms ofhis warrant were covered by the men he found working on the dam, Reeddemanded protection, Sheriff said for him to get an injunction, and itwould be enforced. "

"Well, that's all right, " interjected Orde with satisfaction. "We'llhave her cut through before he gets that injunction, and I guess I'vegot men enough here and down river to get through before we're ALLarrested. "

"Yes, " said Newmark, "that's all very well. But now he's gone totelegraph the governor to send the troops. "

Orde whistled a jig tune. 

"Kind of expected that, boys, " said he. "Let's see. The next train outfrom Redding--They'll be here by five in the morning at soonest. Hopeit'll be later. "

"What will you do?" asked Newmark. 

"Take chances, " replied Orde. "All you boys get to work. Zeke, " hecommanded one of the cookees, "go up road, and report if Morris comesback. I reckon this time we'll have to scatter if he comes after us. Ihope we won't have to, though. Like to keep everything square on accountof this State troop business. "

The sun had dropped below the fringe of trees, which immediately etchedtheir delicate outlines against a pale, translucent green sky. Twostraight, thin columns of smoke rose from the neglected camp-fires. Orde, glancing around him, noticed these. 

"Doctor, " he commanded sharply, "get at your grub! Make some coffeeright off, and bring it down. Get the lanterns from the wanigan, andbring them to the dam. Come on, boys!"

Over a score of men attacked the sluice-way, for by now part of the rearcrew had come down river. The pond above had recovered its volume. Water was beginning to trickle over the top of the gate. In a short timeprogress became difficult, almost impossible, The men worked up to theirknees in swift water. They could not see, and the strokes of axe or picklost much of their force against the liquid. Dusk fell. The fringe ofthe forest became mysterious in its velvet dark. Silver streaks, of asupernal calm, suggested the reaches of the pond. Above, the sky'sday surface unfolded and receded and dissolved and melted away until, through the pale afterglow, one saw beyond into the infinities. Downby the sluice a dozen lanterns flickered and blinked yellow against theblue-blackness of the night. 

After some time Orde called his crew off and opened the sluice-gates. The water had become too deep for effective work, and a half hour's flowwould reduce the pressure. The time was occupied in eating and in dryingoff about the huge fire the second cookee had built close at hand. 

"Water cold, boys?" asked Orde. 

"Some, " was his reply. 

"Want to quit?" he inquired, with mock solicitude. 

"Nary quit. "

Orde's shout of laughter broke the night silence of the whisperingbreeze and the rushing water. 

"We'll stick to 'em like death to a dead nigger, " was his comment. 

Newmark, having extracted a kind of cardigan jacket from the bag he hadbrought with him as far as the mill, looked at the smooth, iron-blackwater and shivered. 

When the meal was finished, the men lit their pipes and went back towork philosophically. With entire absorption in the task, they dug, chopped, and picked. The dull sound of blows, the gurgle and trickleof the water, the occasional grunt or brief comment of a riverman alonebroke the calm of evening. Now that the sluice-gate was down and thewater had ceased temporarily to flow over it, the work went faster. Orde, watching with the eye of an expert, vouchsafed to the taciturnNewmark that he thought they'd make it. 

Near midnight, however, a swaying lantern was seen approaching. Orde, leaping to his feet with a curse at the boy on watch, heard the sound ofwheels. A moment later, Daly's bulky form stepped into the illuminationof the fire. 

Orde wandered over to where his principal stood peering about him. 

"Hullo!" said he. 

"Oh, there you are!" cried Daly angrily. "What in hell you up to here?"

"Running logs, " replied Orde coolly. 

"Running logs!" shouted Daly, tugging at his overcoat pocket, andfinally producing a much-folded newspaper. "How about this?"

Orde unfolded the paper and lowered it to the campfire. It was an extra, screaming with wood type. He read it deliberately over. 

WAR!

the headline ran. 

RIOTING AND BLOODSHED IN THE WOODS

RIVERMEN AND DAM OWNERS CLASH!

There followed a vague and highly coloured statement to the effect thatan initial skirmish had left the field in possession of the rivermen, in spite of the sheriff and a large posse, but that troops were beingrushed to the spot, and that this "high-handed defiance of authority"would undoubtedly soon be suppressed. It concluded truthfully with thestatement that the loss of life was as yet unknown. 

Orde folded up the paper and handed it back. 

"Don't you know any better than to get into that kind of a row downhere?" Daly had been saying. "Do you want to bring us up for good here?Don't you realise that this isn't the northern peninsula? What are youtrying to do, any way?"

"Sure I do, " replied Orde placidly. "Come along here till I show you thesituation. "

Ten minutes later, Daly, relieved in his mind, was standing by the firedrinking hot coffee and laughing at Orde's description of Reed's plughat. 

To Orde's satisfaction, the sheriff did not reappear. Reed evidently nowpinned his faith to the State troops. 

All night the work went on, the men spelling each other at intervals ofevery few hours. By three o'clock the main abutments had been removed. The gate was then blocked to prevent its fall when its nether supportshould be withdrawn, and two men, leaning over cautiously, began atarm's-length to deliver their axe-strokes against the middle of thesill-timbers of the sluice itself, notching each heavy beam deeply thatthe force of the current might finally break it in two. The night wasvery dark, and very still. Even the night creatures had fallen intothe quietude that precedes the first morning hours. The muffled, spacedblows of the axes, the low-voiced comments or directions of the workers, the crackle of the fire ashore were thrown by contrast into an undueimportance. Men in blankets, awaiting their turn, slept close to theblaze. 

Suddenly the vast silence of before dawn was broken by a loud andexultant yell from one of the axemen. At once the two scrambled to thetop of the dam. The blanketed figures about the fire sprang to life. A brief instant later the snapping of wood fibres began like the rapidexplosions of infantry fire; a crash and bang of timbers smote the air;and then the river, exultant, roaring with joy, rushed from its pentquietude into the new passage opened for it. At the same moment, asthough at the signal, a single bird, premonitor of the yet distant day, lifted up his voice, clearly audible above the tumult. 

Orde stormed into the camp up stream, his eyes bright, his big voicebooming exultantly. 

"Roll out, you river-hogs!" he shouted to those who had worked out theirshifts earlier in the night. "Roll out, you web-footed sons of guns, andhear the little birds sing praise!"

Newmark, who had sat up the night through, and now shivered sleepily bythe fire, began to hunt around for the bed-roll he had, earlier in theevening, dumped down somewhere in camp. 

"I suppose that's all, " said he. "Just a case of run logs now. I'll turnin for a little. "

But Orde, a thick slice of bread half-way to his lips, had frozen in anattitude of attentive listening. 

"Hark!" said he. 

Faint, still in the depths of the forest, the wandering morning breezebore to their ears a sound whose difference from the louder noisesnearer at hand alone rendered it audible. 

"The troops!" exclaimed Orde. 

He seized a lantern and returned down the trail, followed eagerly byNewmark and every man in camp. 

"Troops coming!" said Orde to Daly. 

The men drew a little to one side, watching the dim line of the forest, dark against the paling sky. Shadows seemed to stir in its blackness. They heard quite distinctly the clink of metal against metal. A man rodeout of the shadow and reined up by the fire. "Halt!" commanded a harshvoice. The rivermen could make out the troops--three or four score ofthem--standing rigid at attention. Reed, afoot now in favour of thecommanding officer, pushed forward. 

"Who is in charge here?" inquired the officer crisply. 

"I am, " replied Orde, stepping forward. 

"I wish to inquire, sir, if you have gone mad to counsel your men toresist civil authority?"

"I have not resisted civil authority, " replied Orde respectfully. 

"It has been otherwise reported. "

"The reports have been false. The sheriff of this county has arrestedabout twenty of my men single-handed and without the slightest trouble. "

"Mr. Morris, " cried the officer sharply. 

"Yes?" replied the sheriff. 

"Is what this man says true?"

"It sure is. Never had so little fuss arrestin' rivermen before in mylife. "

The officer's face turned a slow brick-red. For a moment he saidnothing, then exploded with the utmost violence. 

"Then why the devil am I dragged up here with my men in the night?" hecried. "Who's responsible for this insanity, anyway? Don't you know, " heroared at Reed, who that moment swung within his range of vision, "that I have no standing in the presence of civil law? What do you meangetting me up here to your miserable little backwoods squabbles?"

Reed started to say something, but was immediately cut short by theirate captain. 

"I've nothing to do with that; settle it in court. And what's more, you'll have something yourself to settle with the State! About, face!Forward, march!"

The men faded into the gray light as though dissolved by it. 

A deep and respectful silence fell upon the men, which was broken byOrde's solemn and dramatic declamation. 

 "The King of France and twice ten thousand men Marched up the hill, and then marched down again, "

he recited; then burst into his deep roar of laughter. 

"Now you see, boys, " he said, digging his fists into his eyes, "if you'dput up a row, what we'd have got into. No blue-coats in mine, thank you. Well, push the grub pile, and then get at those logs. It's a case offlood-water now. "

But Reed, having recovered from his astonishment, had still his say. 

"I tell ye, I'm not done with ye yet, " he threatened, shaking his bonyforefinger in Orde's face. "I'll sue ye for damages, and I'll GIT 'em, too. "

"See here, you old mossback, " said Orde, thrusting his bulky form to thefore, "you sue just as soon as you want to. You can't get at it any tooquick to suit us. But just now you get out of this camp, and you stayout. You're an old man, and we don't want to be rough with you, butyou're biting off more than you can chew. Skedaddle!"

Reed hesitated, waving his long arms about, flail-like, as though tobegin a new oration. 

"Now, do hop along, " urged Orde. "We'll pay you any legitimate damages, of course, but you can't expect to hang up a riverful of logs just on anotion. And we're sick of you. Oh, hell, then! See here, you two; justsee that this man leaves camp. "

Orde turned square on his heel. Reed, after a glance at the two hugerivermen approaching, beat a retreat to his mill, muttering and wrathfulstill. 

"Well, good-bye, boys, " said Daly, pulling on his overcoat; "I'll justget along and bail the boys out of that village calaboose. I reckonthey've had a good night's rest. Be good!"

The fringe of trees to eastward showed clearly against the whiteningsky. Hundreds of birds of all kinds sang in an ecstasy. Another dayhad begun. Already men with pike-poles were guiding the sullen timberstoward the sluice-way. 

IV

When Newmark awoke once more to interest in affairs, the morning waswell spent. On the river the work was going forward with the precisionof clockwork. The six-foot lowering of the sluice-way had produced afine current, which sucked the logs down from above. Men were busilyengaged in "sacking" them from the sides of the pond toward its centre, lest the lowering water should leave them stranded. Below the damthe jam crew was finding plenty to do in keeping them moving in thewhite-water and the shallows. A fine sun, tempered with a propheticwarmth of later spring, animated the scene. Reed had withdrawn to theinterior of his mill, and appeared to have given up the contest. 

Some of the logs shot away down the current, running freely. To thesethe crews were not required to pay any attention. With luck, a few ofthe individual timbers would float ten, even twenty, miles before somechance eddy or fortuitous obstruction would bring them to rest. Sucheddies and obstructions, however, drew a constant toll from the ranks ofthe free-moving logs, so that always the volume of timbers floatingwith the current diminished, and always the number of logs caught andstranded along the sides of the river increased. To restore these tothe faster water was the especial province of the last and most expertcrew--the rear. 

Orde discovered about noon that the jam crew was having its troubles. Immediately below Reed's dam ran a long chute strewn with boulders, which was alternately a shallow or a stretch of white-water accordingas the stream rose or fell. Ordinarily the logs were flushed over thisdeclivity by opening the gate, behind which a head of water hadbeen accumulated. Now, however, the efficiency of the gate had beendestroyed. Orde early discovered that he was likely to have trouble inpreventing the logs rushing through the chute from grounding into a badjam on the rapids below. 

For a time the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In thecentre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier. Alongthe banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own momentum intoplaces so shallow as to discourage any hope of refloating them unlessby main strength. As the sluicing of the nine or ten million feet thatconstituted this particular drive went forward, the situation rapidlybecame worse. 

"Tom, we've got to get flood-water unless we want to run into an awfuljob there, " said Orde to the foreman. "I wonder if we can't drop thatgate 'way down to get something for a head. "

The two men examined the chute and the sluice-gate attentively for sometime. 

"If we could clear out the splinters and rubbish, we might spike acouple of saplings on each side for the gate to slide down into, "speculated North. "Might try her on. "

The logs were held up in the pond, and a crew of men set to work to cutaway, as well as they might in the rush of water, the splintered ends ofthe old sill and apron. It was hard work. Newmark, watching, thought itimpracticable. The current rendered footing impossible, so all the workhad to be done from above. Wet wood gripped the long saws vice-like, so that a man's utmost strength could scarcely budge them. The waterdeadened the force of axe-blows. Nevertheless, with the sure persistenceof the riverman, they held to it. Orde, watching them a few moments, satisfied himself that they would succeed, and so departed up river totake charge of the rear. 

This crew he found working busily among some overflowed woods. Theywere herding the laggards of the flock. The subsidence of the waterconsequent upon the opening of the sluice-gate had left stranded and inshallows many hundreds of the logs. These the men sometimes, waist deepin the icy water, owing to the extreme inequality of the bottom, wererolling over and over with their peavies until once more they floated. Some few the rivermen were forced to carry bodily, ten men to a side, the peavies clamped in as handles. When once they were afloat, the taskbecame easier. From the advantage of deadwood, stumps, or other logsthe "sackers" pushed the unwieldy timbers forward, leaping, splashing, heaving, shoving, until at last the steady current of the main riverseized the logs and bore them away. With marvellous skill they toppedthe dripping, bobby, rolling timbers, treading them over and over, backand forth, in unconscious preservation of equilibrium. 

There was a good deal of noise and fun at the rear. The crew had beendivided, and a half worked on either side the river. A rivalry developedas to which side should advance fastest in the sacking. It becamea race. Momentary success in getting ahead of the other fellow wasoccasion for exultant crowing, while a mishap called forth ironic cheersand catcalls from the rival camp. Just as Orde came tramping up thetrail, one of the rivermen's caulks failed to "bite" on an unusuallysmooth, barked surface. His foot slipped; the log rolled; he tried invain to regain his balance, and finally fell in with a heavy splash. 

The entire river suspended work to send up a howl of delight. As theunfortunate crawled out, dripping from head to foot, he was greeted bya flood of sarcasm and profane inquiry that left no room for even hisacknowledged talents of repartee. Cursing and ashamed, he made his wayashore over the logs, spirting water at every step. There he wrung outhis woollen clothes as dry as he could, and resumed work. 

Hardly had Orde the opportunity to look about at the progress making, however, before he heard his name shouted from the bank. Looking up, tohis surprise he saw the solemn cook waving a frantic dish-towel at him. Nothing could induce the cook to attempt the logs. 

"What is it, Charlie?" asked Orde, leaping ashore and stamping the loosewater from his boots. 

"It's all off, " confided the cook pessimistically. "It's no good. He'sstopped us now. "

"What's off? Who's stopped what?"

"Reed. He's druv the men from the dam with a shotgun. We might as wellquit. "

"Shotgun, hey!" exclaimed Orde. "Well, the old son of a gun!" He thoughta moment, his lips puckered as though to whistle; then, as usual, helaughed amusedly. "Let's go take a look at the army, " said he. 

He swung away at a round pace, followed rather breathlessly by the cook. The trail led through the brush across a little flat point, up over ahigh bluff where the river swung in, down to another point, and across apole trail above a marsh to camp. 

A pole trail consists of saplings laid end to end, and supported threeor four feet above wet places by means of sawbuck-like structures attheir extremities. To a river-man or a tight-rope dancer they are easywalks. All others must proceed cautiously in contrite memory of theirsins. 

Orde marched across the first two lengths confidently enough. Then heheard a splash and lamentations. Turning, he perceived Charlie, coveredwith mud, in the act of clambering up one of the small trestles. 

"Ain't got no caulks!" ran the lamentations. "The ---- of a ---- of apole-trail, anyways!"

He walked ahead gingerly, threw his hands aloft, bent forward, thensuddenly protruded his stomach, held out one foot in front of him, spasmodically half turned, and then, realising the case hopeless, wiltedlike a wet rag, to clasp the pole trail both by arm and leg. This savedhim from falling off altogether, but swung him underneath, where hehung like the sloths in the picture-books. A series of violent wrigglesbrought him, red-faced and panting, astride the pole, whence, hisfeelings beyond mere speech, he sadly eyed his precious derby, whichlay, crown up, in the mud below. 

Orde contemplated the spectacle seriously. 

"Sorry I haven't got time to enjoy you just now, Charlie, " he remarked. "I'd take it slower, if I were you. "

He departed, catching fragments of vows anent never going on any moreerrands for nobody, and getting his time if ever again he went away fromhis wanigan. 

Orde stopped short outside the fringe of brush to utter anotherirrepressible chuckle of amusement. 

The centre of the dam was occupied by Reed. The old man was still infull regalia, his plug hat fuzzier than ever, and thrust even fartherback on his head, his coat-tails and loose trousers flapping at hisevery movement as he paced back and forth with military precision. Overhis shoulder he carried a long percussion-lock shotgun. Not thirtyfeet away, perched along the bank, for all the world like a row ofcormorants, sat the rivermen, watching him solemnly and in silence. 

"What's the matter?" inquired Orde, approaching. 

The old man surveyed him with a snort of disgust. 

"If the law of the land don't protect me, I'll protect myself, sir, " heproclaimed. "I give ye fair warning! I ain't a-going to have my propertyinterfered with no more. "

"But surely, " said Orde, "we have a right to run our logs through. It'san open river. "

"And hev ye been running your logs through?" cried the old manexcitedly. "Hev ye? First off ye begin to tear down my dam; and then, when the river begins a-roarin' and a-ragin' through, then you tamperwith my improvements furthermore, a-lowerin' the gate and otherwisea-modifyin' my structure. "

Orde stepped forward to say something further. Immediately Reed wheeled, his thumb on the hammer. 

"All right, old Spirit of '76, " replied Orde. "Don't shoot; I'll comedown. "

He walked back to the waiting row, smiling quizzically. 

"Well, you calamity howlers, what do you think of it?"

Nobody answered, but everybody looked expectant. 

"Think he'd shoot?" inquired Orde of Tom North. 

"I know he would, " replied North earnestly. "That crazy-headed kind arejust the fellers to rip loose. "

"I think myself he probably would, " agreed Orde. 

"Surely, " spoke up Newmark, "whatever the status of the damage suits, you have the legal right to run your logs. "

Orde rolled a quizzical eye in his direction. 

"Per-fect-ly correct, son, " he drawled, "but we're engaged in the happyoccupation of getting out logs. By the time the law was all adjusted anda head of steam up, the water'd be down. In this game, you get out logsfirst, and think about law afterward. "

"How about legal damages?" insisted Newmark. 

"Legal damages!" scoffed Orde. "Legal damages! Why, we count legaldamages as part of our regular expenses--like potatoes. It's lucky it'sso, " he added. "If anybody paid any attention to legal technicalities, there'd never be a log delivered. A man always has enemies. 

"Well, what are you going to do?" persisted Newmark. 

Orde thrust back his felt hat and ran his fingers through his short, crisp hair. 

"There you've got me, " he confessed, "but, if necessary, we'll pile theold warrior. "

He walked to the edge of the dam and stood looking down current. Forperhaps a full minute he remained there motionless, his hat clinging toone side, his hand in his hair. Then he returned to the grimly silentrivermen. 

"Boys, " he commanded briefly, "get your peavies and come along. "

He led the way past the mill to the shallows below. 

"There's a trifle of wading to do, " he announced. "Bring down twologs--fairly big--and hold them by that old snag, " he ordered. "Whoa-up!Easy! Hold them end on--no, pointing up stream--fix 'em about ten footapart--that's it! George, drive a couple of stakes each side of themto hold 'em. Correct! Now, run down a couple dozen more and pile themacross those two--side on to the stream, of course. Roll 'em up--that'sthe ticket!"

Orde had been splashing about in the shallow water, showing whereeach timber was to be placed. He drew back, eyeing the result withsatisfaction. It looked rather like a small and bristly pier. 

Next he cast his eye about and discovered a partially submerged boulderon a line with the newly completed structure. Against this he bracedthe ends of two more logs, on which he once more caused to be loadedat right angles many timbers. An old stub near shore furnished him thebasis of a third pier. He staked a thirty-inch butt for a fourth; andso on, until the piers, in conjunction with the small centre jam alreadymentioned, extended quite across the river. 

All this was accomplished in a very short time, and immediately belowthe mill, but beyond sight from the sluice-gate of the dam. 

"Now, boys, " commanded Orde, "shove off some shore logs, and let themcome down. "

"We'll have a jam sure, " objected Purdy stupidly. 

"No, my son, would we?" mocked Orde. "I surely hope not!"

The stray logs floating down with the current the rivermen caught andarranged to the best possible advantage about the improvised piers. A good riverman understands the correlation of forces represented bysaw-logs and water-pressure. He knows how to look for the key-log inbreaking jams; and by the inverse reasoning, when need arises he canform a jam as expertly as Koosy-oonek himself--that bad little godwho brings about the disagreeable and undesired--"who hides our pipes, steals our last match, and brings rain on the just when they want to gofishing. "

So in ten seconds after the shore logs began drifting down from above, the jam was taking shape. Slowly it formed, low and broad. Then, as thewater gathered pressure, the logs began to slip over one another. Theweight of the topmost sunk those beneath to the bed of the stream. Thisto a certain extent dammed back the water. Immediately the pressureincreased. More logs were piled on top. The piers locked the structure. Below the improvised dam the water fell almost to nothing, and above it, swirling in eddies, grumbling fiercely, bubbling, gurgling, searchingbusily for an opening, the river, turned back on itself, gathered itsswollen and angry forces. 

"That will do, boys, " said Orde with satisfaction. 

He led the way to the bank and sat down. The men followed his example. Every moment the water rose, and each instant, as more logs came downthe current, the jam became more formidable. 

"Nothing can stand that pressure, " breathed Newmark, fascinated. 

"The bigger the pressure the tighter she locks, " replied Orde, lightinghis pipe. 

The high bank where the men sat lay well above the reach of the water. Not so the flat on which stood Reed's mill. In order to take fulladvantage of the water-power developed by the dam, the old man hadcaused his structure to be built nearly at a level with the stream. Now the river, backing up, rapidly overflowed this flat. As the jamtightened by its own weight and the accumulation of logs, the waterfairly jumped from the lowest floor of the mill to the one above. 

Orde had not long to wait for Reed's appearance. In less than fiveminutes the old man descended on the group, somewhat of his martial airabated, and something of a vague anxiety manifest in his eye. 

"What's the matter here?" he demanded. 

"Matter?" inquired Orde easily. "Oh, nothing much, just a little jam. "

"But it's flooding my mill!"

"So I perceive, " replied Orde, striking a match. 

"Well, why don't you break it?"

"Not interested. "

The old warrior ran up the bank to where he could get a good view of hisproperty. The water was pouring into the first-floor windows. 

"Here!" he cried, running back. "I've a lot of grain up-stairs. It'll beruined!"

"Not interested, " repeated Orde. 

Reed was rapidly losing control of himself. 

"But I've got a lot of money invested here!" he shouted. "You miserableblackguard, you're ruining me!"

Orde replaced his pipe. 

Reed ran back and forth frantically, disappeared, returned bearing anantiquated pike-pole, and single-handed and alone attacked the jam!

Astonishment and delight held the rivermen breathless for a moment. Thena roar of laughter drowned even the noise of the waters. Men poundedeach other on the back, rolled over and over, clutching handfuls ofearth, struggled weak and red-faced for breath as they saw against thesky-line of the bristling jam the lank, flapping figure with the oldplug hat pushing frantically against the immovable statics of a mightypower. The exasperation of delay, the anxiety lest success be lostthrough the mulish and narrow-minded obstinacy of one man, theresentment against another obstacle not to be foreseen and not to beexpected in a task redundantly supplied with obstacles of its own--thesefound relief at last. 

"By Jove!" breathed Newmark softly to himself. "Don Quixote and thewindmills!" Then he added vindictively, "The old fool!" although, ofcourse, the drive was not his personal concern. 

Only Orde seemed to see the other side. And on Orde the responsibility, uncertainty, and vexation had borne most heavily, for the success of theundertaking was in his hands. With a few quick leaps he had gained theold man's side. 

"Look here, Reed, " he said kindly, "you can't break this jam. Comeashore now, and let up. You'll kill yourself. "

Reed turned to him, a wild light in his eye. 

"Break it!" he pleaded. "You're ruining me. I've got all my money inthat mill. "

"Well, " said Orde, "we've got a lot of money in our logs too. Youhaven't treated us quite right. "

Reed glanced frantically toward the flood up stream. 

"Come, " said Orde, taking him gently by the arm. "There's no reason youand I shouldn't get along together all right. Maybe we're both a littlehard-headed. Let's talk it over. "

He led the old man ashore, and out of earshot of the rivermen. 

At the end of ten minutes he returned. 

"War's over, boys!" he shouted cheerfully. "Get in and break that jam. "

At once the crew swarmed across the log barrier to a point above thecentre pier. This they attacked with their peavies, rolling the top logsoff into the current below. In less than no time they had torn outquite a hole in the top layer. The river rushed through the opening. Immediately the logs in the wings were tumbled in from either side. At first the men had to do all of the work, but soon the river itselfturned to their assistance. Timbers creaked and settled, or roseslightly buoyant as the water loosened the tangle. Men trod on the edgeof expectation. Constantly the logs shifted, and as constantly the menshifted also, avoiding the upheavals and grindings together, wary eyesestimating the correlation of the forces into whose crushing reach asingle misstep would bring them. The movement accelerated each instant, as the music of the play hastens to the climax. Wood fibres smashed. The whole mass seemed to sink down and forward into a boiling of waters. Then, with a creak and a groan, the jam moved, hesitated, moved again;finally, urged by the frantic river, went out in a majestic crashing andbattering of logs. 

At the first movement Newmark expected the rivermen to make theirescape. Instead, they stood at attention, their peavies poised, watchingcat-eyed the symptoms of the break. Twice or thrice several of themen, observing something not evident to Newmark's unpractised eye, ranforward, used their peavies vigorously for a moment or so, and stoodback to watch the result. Only at the very last, when it would seem thatsome of them must surely he caught, did the river-jacks, using theirpeavy-shafts as balancing poles, zigzag calmly to shore across theplunging logs. Newmark seemed impressed. 

"That was a close shave, " said he to the last man ashore. 

"What?" inquired the riverman. "Didn't see it. Somebody fall down?"

"Why, no, " explained Newmark; "getting in off those logs without gettingcaught. "

"Oh!" said the man indifferently, turning away. 

The going out of the jam drained the water from the lower floors of themill; the upper stories and the grain were still safe. 

By evening the sluice-gate had been roughly provided with pole guidesdown which to slide to the bed of the river. The following morning sawthe work going on as methodically as ever. During the night a verygood head of water had gathered behind the lowered gate. The rear crewbrought down the afterguard of logs to the pond. The sluicers with theirlong pike-poles thrust the logs into the chute. The jam crew, scatteredfor many miles along the lower stretches, kept the drive going; runningout over the surface of the river like water-bugs to thrust apart logsthreatening to lock; leaning for hours on the shafts of their peavieswatching contemplatively the orderly ranks as they drifted by, sleepy, on the bosom of the river; occasionally gathering, as the filling ofthe river gave warning, to break a jam. By the end of the second day thepond was clear, and as Charlie's wanigan was drifting toward the chute, the first of Johnson's drive floated into the head of the pond. 

V

Charlie's wanigan, in case you do not happen to know what such a thingmay be, was a scow about twenty feet long by ten wide. It wasvery solidly constructed of hewn timbers, square at both ends, wasinconceivably clumsy, and weighed an unbelievable number of pounds. When loaded, it carried all the bed-rolls, tents, provisions, cookingutensils, tools, and a chest of tobacco, clothes, and other minorsupplies. It was managed by Charlie and his two cookees by means ofpike-poles and a long sweep at either end. The pike-poles assuredprogress when the current slacked; the sweeps kept her head-on whendrifting with the stream. 

Charlie's temperament was pessimistic at best. When the wanigan wasto be moved, he rose fairly to the heights of what might be calleddestructive prophecy. 

The packing began before the men had finished breakfast. Shortly afterdaylight the wanigan, pushed strongly from shore by the pike-poles, was drifting toward the chute. When the heavy scow threatened to turnside-on, the sweeps at either end churned the water frantically in anendeavour to straighten her out. Sometimes, by a misunderstanding, theyworked against each other. Then Charlie, raging from one to the other ofhis satellites, frothed and roared commands and vituperations. His voicerose to a shriek. The cookees, bewildered by so much violence, losttheir heads completely. Then Charlie abruptly fell to an exaggeratedcalm. He sat down amidships on a pile of bags, and gazed withostentatious indifference out over the pond. Finally, in a voice fallenalmost to a whisper, and with an elaborate politeness, Charlie proffereda request that his assistants acquire the sense God gave a rooster. Newmark, who had elected to accompany the wanigan on its voyage, evidently found it vastly amusing, for his eyes twinkled behind hisglasses. As the wanigan neared the sluice through which it must shootthe flood-water, the excitement mounted to fever pitch. The water boiledunder the strokes of the long steering oars. The air swirled with themultitude and vigour of Charlie's commands. As many of the driving crewas were within distance gathered to watch. It was a supreme moment. AsNewmark looked at the smooth rim of the water sucking into the chute, hebegan to wonder why he had come. 

However, the noble ship was pointed right at last, and caught the fasterwater head-on. Even Charlie managed to look cheerful for an instant, andto grin at his passenger as he wiped his forehead with a very old, redhandkerchief. 

"All right now, " he shouted. 

Zeke and his mate took in the oars. The wanigan shot forward below thegate--

WHACK! BUMP! BANG! and the scow stopped so suddenly that its four menplunged forward in a miscellaneous heap, while Zeke narrowly escapedgoing overboard. Almost immediately the water, backed up behind thestern, began to overflow into the boat. Newmark, clearing his visionas well as he could for lack of his glasses, saw that the scow hadevidently run her bow on an obstruction, and had been brought to astandstill square beneath the sluice-gate. Men seemed to be runningtoward them. The water was beginning to flow the entire length of theboat. Various lighter articles shot past him and disappeared over theside. Charlie had gone crazy and was grabbing at these, quite uselessly, for as fast as he had caught one thing he let it go in favour ofanother. The cookees, retaining some small degree of coolness, werepushing uselessly with pike-poles. 

Newmark had an inspiration. The more important matters, such as themen's clothes-bags, the rolls of bedding, and the heavier supplies ofprovisions, had not yet cut loose from their moorings, although therapid backing of the water threatened soon to convert the wanigan intoa chute for nearly the full volume of the current. He seized one of thelong oars, thrust the blade under the edge of a thwart astern laid theshaft of the oar across the cargo, and by resting his weight on thehandle attempted to bring it down to bind the contents of the waniganto their places. The cookees saw what he was about, and came to hisassistance. Together they succeeded in bending the long hickory sweepfar enough to catch its handle-end under another, forward, thwart. Thesecond oar was quickly locked alongside the first, and not a moment toosoon. A rush of water forced them all to cling for their lives. The poorold wanigan was almost buried by the river. 

But now help was at hand. Two or three rivermen appeared at the edge ofthe chute. A moment later old man Reed ran up, carrying a rope. This, after some difficulty, was made fast to the bow of the wanigan. A dozenmen ran with the end of it to a position of vantage from which theymight be able to pull the bow away from the sunken obstruction, butOrde, appearing above, called a halt. After consultation withReed, another rope was brought and the end of it tossed down to theshipwrecked crew. Orde pointed to the stern of the boat, revolving hishands in pantomime to show that the wanigan would be apt to upset ifallowed to get side-on when freed. A short rope led to the top of thedam allowed the bow to be lifted free of the obstruction; a cable asternprevented the current from throwing her broadside to the rush of waters;another cable from the bow led her in the way she should go. Tenminutes later she was pulled ashore out of the eddy below, very muchwater-logged, and manned by a drenched and disgruntled crew. 

But Orde allowed them little chance for lamentation. 

"Hard luck!" he said briefly. "Hope you haven't lost much. Now get amove on you and bail out. You've got to get over the shallows while thishead is on. "

"That's all the thanks you get, " grumbled Charlie to himself and theother three as Orde moved away. "Work, slave, get up in the night, drownd yourself--"

He happily discovered that the pails under the forward thwart had notbeen carried away, and all started in to bail. It was a back-breakingjob, and consumed the greater part of two hours. Even at the end of thattime the wanigan, though dry of loose water, floated but sluggishly. 

"'Bout two ton of water in them bed-rolls and turkeys, " grumbledCharlie. "Well, get at it!"

Newmark soon discovered that the progress of the wanigan was looked uponin the light of a side-show by the rivermen. Its appearance wassignal for shouts of delighted and ironic encouragement; itstribulations--which at first, in the white-water, were many--theoccasion for unsympathetic and unholy joy. Charlie looked on allspectators as enemies. Part of the time he merely glowered. Part of thetime he tried to reply in kind. To his intense disgust, he was takenseriously in neither case. 

In a couple of hours' run the wanigan had overtaken and left far behindthe rear of the drive. All about floated the logs, caroming gently oneagainst the other, shifting and changing the pattern of their brownagainst the blue of the water. The current flowed strongly and smoothly, but without obstruction. Everything went well. The banks slipped bysilently and mysteriously, like the unrolling of a panorama--littlestrips of marshland, stretches of woodland where the great trees leanedout over the river, thickets of overflowed swampland with the waterrising and draining among roots in a strange regularity of its own. Thesun shone warm. There was no wind. Newmark wrung out his outergarments, and basked below the gunwale. Zeke and his companion pulledspasmodically on the sweeps. Charlie, having regained his equanimitytogether with his old brown derby, which he came upon floating soddenin an eddy, marched up and down the broad gunwale with his pike-pole, thrusting away such logs as threatened interference. 

"Well, " said he at last, "we better make camp. We'll be down in the jampretty soon. "

The cookees abandoned the sweeps in favour of more pike-poles. Bypushing and pulling on the logs floating about them, they managed towork the wanigan in close to the bank. 

Charlie, a coil of rope in his hand, surveyed the prospects. 

"We'll stop right down there by that little knoll, " he announced. 

He leaped ashore, made a turn around a tree, and braced himself to snubthe boat, but unfortunately he had not taken into consideration the"two ton" of water soaked up by the cargo. The weight of the craftrelentlessly dragged him forward. In vain he braced and struggled. Theend of the rope came to the tree; he clung for a moment, then let go, and ran around the tree to catch it before it should slip into thewater. 

By this time the wanigan had caught the stronger current at the bend andwas gathering momentum. Charlie tried to snub at a sapling, and brokethe sapling; on a stub, and uprooted the stub. Down the banks andthrough the brush he tore at the end of his rope, clinging desperately, trying at every solid tree to stop the career of his runaway, but inevery instance being forced by the danger of jamming his hands to letgo. Again he lost his derby. The landscape was a blur. Dimly he madeout the howls of laughter as the outfit passed a group of rivermen. Thenabruptly a ravine yawned before him, and he let go just in time to savehimself a fall. The wanigan, trailing her rope, drifted away. 

Nor did she stop until she had overtaken the jam. There, her momentumreduced by the closer crowding of the logs, she slowed down enough sothat Newmark and the cookees managed to work her to the bank and makeher fast. 

That evening, after the wanigan's crew had accomplished a hardafternoon's work pitching camp and drying blankets, the first of therear drifted in very late after a vain search for camp farther upstream. 

"For God's sake, Charlie, " growled one, "it's a wonder you wouldn't runthrough to Redding and be done with it. "

Whereupon Charlie, who had been preternaturally calm all the afternoon, uttered a shriek of rage, and with a carving-knife chased that man outinto the brush. Nor would he be appeased to the point of getting supperuntil Orde himself had intervened. 

"Well, " said Orde to Newmark later, around the campfire, "how doesriver-driving strike you?"

"It is extremely interesting, " replied Newmark. 

"Like to join the wanigan crew permanently?"

"No, thanks, " returned Newmark drily. 

"Well, stay with us as long as you're having a good time, " invited Ordeheartily, but turning away from his rather uncommunicative visitor. 

"Thank you, " Newmark acknowledged this, "I believe I will. "

"Well, Tommy, " called Orde across the fire to North, "I reckon we've gotto rustle some more supplies. That shipwreck of ours to-day mighty nearcleaned us out of some things. Lucky Charlie held his head and locked inthe bedding with those sweeps, or we'd have been strapped. "

"I didn't do it, " grumbled Charlie. "It was him. "

"Oh!" Orde congratulated Newmark. "Good work! I'm tickled to death youbelonged to that crew. "

"That old mossback Reed was right on deck with his rope, " remarkedJohnny Simms. "That was pretty decent of him. "

"Old skunk!" growled North. "He lost us two days with his damn nonsense. You let him off too easy, Jack. "

"Oh, he's a poor old devil, " replied Orde easily. "He means well enough. That's the way the Lord made him. He can't help how he's made. "

VI

During the thirty-three days of the drive, Newmark, to the surpriseof everybody, stayed with the work. Some of these days were verydisagreeable. April rains are cold and persistent--the proverbs as toshowers were made for another latitude. Drenched garments are bad enoughwhen a man is moving about and has daylight; but when night falls, and the work is over, he likes a dry place and a change with which tocomfort himself. Dry places there were none. Even the interior of thetents became sodden by continual exits and entrances of dripping men, while dry garments speedily dampened in the shiftings of camp which, inthe broader reaches of the lower river, took place nearly every day. Menworked in soaked garments, slept in damp blankets. Charlie cooked onlyby virtue of persistence. The rivermen ate standing up, as close tothe sputtering, roaring fires as they could get. Always the work wentforward. 

But there were other times when a golden sun rose each morning a littleearlier on a green and joyous world. The river ran blue. Migratory birdsfled busily northward--robins, flute-voiced blue-birds, warblers ofmany species, sparrows of different kinds, shore birds and ducks, thesweet-songed thrushes. Little tepid breezes wandered up and down, warm in contrast to the faint snow-chill that even yet lingered in theshadows. Sounds carried clearly, so that the shouts and banter of therivermen were plainly audible up the reaches of the river. Ashore moistand aggressive green things were pushing up through the watery earthfrom which, in shade, the last frost had not yet departed. At camp thefires roared invitingly. Charlie's grub was hot and grateful. The firbeds gave dreamless sleep. 

Newmark followed the work of the log-drive with great interest. All daylong he tramped back and forth--on jam one day, on rear the next. Henever said much, but watched keenly, and listened to the men's banterboth on the work and about the evening's fire as though he enjoyedit. Gradually the men got used to him, and ceased to treat him as anoutsider. His thin, eager face, his steel-blue, inquiring eyes behindthe glasses, his gray felt hat, his lank, tense figure in its gray, became a familiar feature. They threw remarks to him, to which hereplied briefly and drily. When anything interesting was going on, somebody told him about it. Then he hurried to the spot, no matter howdistant it might be. He used always the river trail; he never attemptedto ride the logs. 

He seemed to depend most on observation, for he rarely asked anyquestions. What few queries he had to proffer, he made to Orde himself, waiting sometimes until evening to interview that busy and good-naturedindividual. Then his questions were direct and to the point. Theyrelated generally to the advisability of something he had seen done;only rarely did they ask for explanation of the work itself. ThatNewmark seemed capable of puzzling out for himself. 

The drive, as has been said, went down as far as Redding in thirty-threedays. It had its share of tribulation. The men worked fourteen andsixteen hours at times. Several bad jams relieved the monotony. Threedams had to be sluiced through. Problems of mechanics arose to be solvedon the spot; problems that an older civilisation would have attackeddeliberately and with due respect for the seriousness of the situationand the dignity of engineering. Orde solved them by a rough-and-readybut very effective rule of thumb. He built and abandoned structureswhich would have furnished opportunity for a winter's discussion to somecommittees; just as, earlier in the work, the loggers had built througha rough country some hundreds of miles of road better than railroadgrade, solid in foundation, and smooth as a turnpike, the quarter ofwhich would have occupied the average county board of supervisorsfor five years. And while he was at it, Orde kept his men busy andsatisfied. Your white-water birler is not an easy citizen to handle. Yetnever once did the boss appear hurried or flustered. Always hewandered about, his hands in his pockets, chewing a twig, his round, wind-reddened face puckered humorously, his blue eyes twinkling, hissquare, burly form lazily relaxed. He seemed to meet his men almostsolely on the plane of good-natured chaffing. Yet the work was done, anddone efficiently, and Orde was the man responsible. 

The drive of which Orde had charge was to be delivered at the booms ofMorrison and Daly, a mile or so above the city of Redding. Redding was athriving place of about thirty thousand inhabitants, situated on a longrapids some forty miles from Lake Michigan. The water-power developedfrom the rapids explained Redding's existence. Most of the logs floateddown the river were carried through to the village at the lake coast, where, strung up the river for eight or ten miles, stood a dozen or sobig saw-mills, with concomitant booms, yards, and wharves. Morrison andDaly, however, had built a saw and planing mill at Redding, wherethey supplied most of the local trade and that of the surroundingcountry-side. 

The drive, then, was due to break up as soon as the logs should besafely impounded. 

The last camp was made some six or eight miles above the mill. From thatpoint a good proportion of the rivermen, eager for a taste of the town, tramped away down the road, to return early in the morning, more or lessdrunk, but faithful to their job. One or two did not return. 

Among the revellers was the cook, Charlie, commonly called The Doctor. The rivermen early worked off the effects of their rather wild spree, and turned up at noon chipper as larks. Not so the cook. He moped aboutdisconsolately all day; and in the evening, after his work had beenfinished, he looked so much like a chicken with the pip that Orde'sattention was attracted. 

"Got that dark-brown taste, Charlie?" he inquired with mock solicitude. 

The cook mournfully shook his head. 

"Large head? Let's feel your pulse. Stick out your tongue, sonny. "

"I ain't been drinking, I tell you!" growled Charlie. 

"Drinking!" expostulated Orde, horrified. "Of course not! I hope noneof MY boys ever take a drink! But that lemon-pop didn't agree with yourstomach--now did it, Charlie?"

"I tell you I only had two glasses of beer!" cried Charlie, goaded, "andI can prove it by Johnny Challan. "

Orde turned to survey the pink-cheeked, embarrassed young boy thusdesignated. 

"How many glasses did Johnny Challan have?" he inquired. 

"He didn't drink none to speak of, " spoke up the boy. 

"Then why this joyless demeanour?" begged Orde. 

Charlie grumbled, fiercely inarticulate; but Johnny Challan interposedwith a chuckle of enjoyment. 

"He got 'bunked. '"

"Tell us!" cried Orde delightedly. 

"It was down at McNeill's place, " explained Johnny Challan; encouragedby the interest of his audience. "They was a couple of sports there whothrowed out three cards on the table and bet you couldn't pick the jack. They showed you where the jack was before they throwed, and it surelylooked like a picnic, but it wasn't. "

"Three-card monte, " said Newmark. 

"How much?" asked Simms. 

"About fifty dollars, " replied the boy. 

Orde turned on the disgruntled cook. 

"And you had fifty in your turkey, camping with this outfit of hardcitizens!" he cried. "You ought to lose it. "

Johnny Challan was explaining to his companions exactly how the game wasplayed. 

"It's a case of keep your eye on the card, I should think, " said big TimNolan. "If you got a quick enough eye to see him flip the card around, you ought to be able to pick her. "

"That's what this sport said, " agreed Challan. "'Your eye agin my hand, 'says he. "

"Well, I'd like to take a try at her, " mused Tim. 

But at this point Newmark broke into the discussion. "Have you a pack ofcards?" he asked in his dry, incisive manner. 

Somebody rummaged in a turkey and produced the remains of an old deck. 

"I don't believe this is a full deck, " said he, "and I think they's partof two decks in it. "

"I only want three, " assured Newmark, reaching his hand for the pack. 

The men crowded around close, those in front squatting, those behindlooking over their shoulders. 

Newmark cleared a cracker-box of drying socks and drew it to him. 

"These three are the cards, " he said, speaking rapidly. "There is thejack of hearts. I pass my hands--so. Pick the jack, one of you, " hechallenged, leaning back from the cracker-box on which lay the threecards, back up. "Any of you, " he urged. "You, North. "

Thus directly singled out, the foreman leaned forward and ratherhesitatingly laid a blunt forefinger on one of the bits of pasteboard. 

Without a word, Newmark turned it over. It was the ten of spades. 

"Let me try, " interposed Tim Nolan, pressing his big shoulders forward. "I bet I know which it was that time; and I bet I can pick her nexttime. "

"Oh, yes, you BET!" shrugged Newmark. "And that's where the card-sharpsget you fellows every time. Well, pick it, " said he, again deftlyflipping the cards. 

Nolan, who had watched keenly, indicated one without hesitation. Againit proved to be the ten of spades. 

"Anybody else ambitious?" inquired Newmark. Everybody was ambitious;and the young man, with inexhaustible patience, threw out the cards, thecorners of his mouth twitching sardonically at each wrong guess. 

At length he called a halt. 

"By this time I'd have had all your money, " he pointed out. "Now, I'llpick the jack. "

For the last time he made his swift passes and distributed the cards. Then quite calmly, without disturbing the three on the cracker-box, heheld before their eyes the jack of hearts. 

An exclamation broke from the interested group. Tim Nolan, who was thenearest, leaned forward and turned over the three on the board. Theywere the eight of diamonds and two tens of spades. 

"That's how the thing is worked nine times out of ten, " announcedNewmark. "Once in a while you'll run against a straight game, but notoften. "

"But you showed us the jack every time before you throwed them!" puzzledJohnny Simms. 

"Sleight of hand, " explained Newmark. "The simplest kind of palming. "

"Well, Charlie, " said big Tim, "looks to me as if you had just about asmuch chance as a snowball in hell. "

"Where'd you get onto doing all that, Newmark?" inquired North. "Youain't a tin horn yourself?"

Newmark laughed briefly. "Not I, " said he. "I learned a lot of thosetricks from a travelling magician in college. "

During this demonstration Orde had sat well in the background, his chinpropped on his hand, watching intently all that was going on. Afterthe comment and exclamations following the exposure of the method hadsubsided, he spoke. 

"Boys, " said he, "how game are you to get Charlie's money back--and thensome?"

"Try us, " returned big Tim. 

"This game's at McNeill's, and McNeill's is a tough hole, " warned Orde. "Maybe everything will go peaceful, and maybe not. And you boys that gowith me have got to keep sober. There isn't going to be any row unlessI say so, and I'm not taking any contract to handle a lot of drunkenriver-hogs as well as go against a game. "

"All right, " agreed Nolan, "I'm with you. "

The thirty or so men of the rear crew then in camp signified theirintention to stay by the procession. 

"You can't make those sharps disgorge, " counselled Newmark. "At thefirst look of trouble they will light out. They have it all fixed. Forcewon't do you much good--and may get some of you shot. "

"I'm not going to use force, " denied Orde. "I'm just going to play theirgame. But I bet I can make it go. Only I sort of want the moral supportof the boys. "

"I tell you, you CAN'T win!" cried Newmark disgustedly. "It's a bracegame pure and simple. "

"I don't know about it's being pure, " replied Orde drolly, "but it'ssimple enough, if you know how to make the wheels go 'round. How is it, boys--will you back my play?"

And such was their confidence that, in face of Newmark's demonstration, they said they would. 

VII

After the men had been paid off, perhaps a dozen of them hung aroundthe yards awaiting evening and the rendezvous named by Orde. The restdrifted away full of good intentions, but did not show up again. Ordehimself was busy up to the last moment, but finally stamped out of theoffice just as the boarding-house bell rang for supper. He surveyed whatremained of his old crew and grinned. 

"Well, boys, ready for trouble?" he greeted them. "Come on. "

They set out up the long reach of Water Street, their steel caulksbiting deep into the pitted board-walks. 

For nearly a mile the street was flanked solely by lumber-yards, smallmills, and factories. Then came a strip of unimproved land, followedimmediately by the wooden, ramshackle structures of Hell's Half-Mile. 

In the old days every town of any size had its Hell's Half-Mile, or theequivalent. Saginaw boasted of its Catacombs; Muskegon, Alpena, PortHuron, Ludington, had their "Pens, " "White Rows, " "River Streets, ""Kilyubbin, " and so forth. They supported row upon row of saloons, alikestuffy and squalid; gambling hells of all sorts; refreshment "parlours, "where drinks were served by dozens of "pretty waiter-girls, " and hugedance-halls. 

The proprietors of these places were a bold and unscrupulous lot. In their everyday business they had to deal with the most dangerousrough-and-tumble fighters this country has ever known; with men bubblingover with the joy of life, ready for quarrel if quarrel also spelledfun, drinking deep, and heavy-handed and fearless in their cups. Buteach of these rivermen had two or three hundred dollars to "blow" assoon as possible. The pickings were good. Men got rich very quickly atthis business. And there existed this great advantage in favour of thedive-keeper: nobody cared what happened to a riverman. You could poundhim over the head with a lead pipe, or drug his drink, or choke him toinsensibility, or rob him and throw him out into the street, or evendrop him tidily through a trap-door into the river flowing convenientlybeneath. Nobody bothered--unless, of course, the affair was so bungledas to become public. The police knew enough to stay away when the drivehit town. They would have been annihilated if they had not. The only flyin the divekeeper's ointment was that the riverman would fight back. 

And fight back he did, until from one end of his street to the other hehad left the battered evidences of his skill as a warrior. His constantheavy lifting made him as hard as nails and as strong as a horse; thecontinual demand on his agility in riding the logs kept him active andprevented him from becoming muscle-bound; in his wild heart was not theleast trace of fear of anything that walked, crawled, or flew. Andhe was as tireless as machinery, and apparently as indifferent topunishment as a man cast in iron. 

Add to this a happy and complete disregard of consequences--to himselfor others--of anything he did, and, in his own words, he was a "hard manto nick. "

As yet the season was too early for much joy along Hell's Half-Mile. Orde's little crew, and the forty or fifty men of the drive that hadpreceded him, constituted the rank and file at that moment in town. Alittle later, when all the drives on the river should be in, and thoseof its tributaries, and the men still lingering at the woods camps, atleast five hundred woods-weary men would be turned loose. Then Hell'sHalf-Mile would awaken in earnest from its hibernation. The lights wouldblaze from day to day. From its opened windows would blare the music, the cries of men and women, the shuffle of feet, the noise of fighting, the shrieks of wild laughter, curses deep and frank and unashamed, songsbroken and interrupted. Crews of men, arms locked, would surge up anddown the narrow sidewalks, their little felt hats cocked one side, their heads back, their fearless eyes challenging the devil and all hisworks--and getting the challenge accepted. Girls would flit across thelit windows like shadows before flames, or stand in the doorways hailingthe men jovially by name. And every few moments, above the roar of thiswild inferno, would sound the sudden crash and the dull blows of combat. Only, never was heard the bark of the pistol. The fighting was fierce, and it included kicking with the sharp steel boot-caulks, biting andgouging; but it barred knives and firearms. And when Hell's Half-Milewas thus in full eruption, the citizens of Redding stayed away fromWater Street after dark. "Drive's in, " said they, and had businesselsewhere. And the next group of rivermen, hurrying toward the fun, broke into an eager dog-trot. "Taking the old town apart to-night, " theytold each other. "Let's get in the game. "

To-night, however, the street was comparatively quiet. The saloons wereof modified illumination. In many of them men stood drinking, but ina sociable rather than a hilarious mood. Old friends of the twodrives were getting together for a friendly glass. The barkeepers werelistlessly wiping the bars. The "pretty waiter-girls" gossiped with eachother and yawned behind their hands. From several doorways Orde's littlecompact group was accosted by the burly saloonkeepers. 

"Hullo, boys!" said they invariably, "glad to see you back. Come in andhave a drink on me. "

Well these men knew that one free drink would mean a dozen paid for. Butthe rivermen merely shook their heads. 

"Huh!" sneered one of the girls. "Them's no river-jacks! Them's just offthe hay trail, I bet!"

But even this time-honoured and generally effective taunt was ignored. 

In the middle of the third block Orde wheeled sharp to the left down adark and dangerous-looking alley. Another turn to the right brought himinto a very narrow street. Facing this street stood a three-story woodenstructure, into which led a high-arched entrance up a broad half-flightof wooden steps. This was McNeill's. 

As Orde and his men turned into the narrow street, a figure detacheditself from the shadow and approached. Orde uttered an exclamation. 

"You here, Newmark?" he cried. 

"Yes, " replied that young man. "I want to see this through. "

"With those clothes?" marvelled Orde. "It's a wonder some of these thugshaven't held you up long ago! I'll get Johnny here to go back with youto the main street. "

"No, " argued Newmark, "I want to go in with you. "

"It's dangerous, " explained Orde. "You're likely to get slugged. "

"I can stand it if you can, " returned Newmark. 

"I doubt it, " said Orde grimly. "However, it's your funeral. Come on, ifyou want to. "

McNeill's lower story was given over entirely to drinking. A bar randown all one side of the room. Dozens of little tables occupied thefloor. "Pretty waiter-girls" were prepared to serve drinks at theselatter--and to share in them, at a commission. The second floor was atheatre, and the third a dance-hall. Beneath the building were stillviler depths. From this basement the riverman and the shanty boygenerally graduated penniless, and perhaps unconscious, to the street. Now, your lumber-jack did not customarily arrive at this stage withoutmore or less lively doings en route; therefore McNeill's maintained aforce of fighters. They were burly, sodden men, in striking contrast tothe clean-cut, clear-eyed rivermen, but strong in their experience andtheir discipline. To be sure, they might not last quite as long as theirantagonists could--a whisky training is not conducive to long wind--butthey always lasted plenty long enough. Sand-bags and brass knuckleshelped some, ruthless singleness of purpose counted, and team workfinished the job. At times the storm rose high, but up to now McNeillhad always ridden it. 

Orde and his men entered the lower hall, as though sauntering in withoutdefinite aim. Perhaps a score of men were in the room. Two tables ofcards were under way--with a great deal of noisy card-slapping thatproclaimed the game merely friendly. Eight or ten other men wanderedabout idly, chaffing loudly with the girls, pausing to overlook the cardgames, glancing with purposeless curiosity at the professional gamblerssitting quietly behind their various lay-outs. It was a dull evening. 

Orde wandered about with the rest, a wide, good-natured smile on hisface. 

"Start your little ball to rolling for that, " he instructed the rouletteman, tossing down a bill. "Dropped again!" he lamented humorously. "Can't seem to have any luck. "

He drifted on to the crap game. 

"Throw us the little bones, pardner, " he said. "I'll go you a five onit. "

He lost here, and so found himself at the table presided over by thethree-card monte men. The rest of his party, who had according toinstructions scattered about the place, now began quietly to gravitatein his direction. 

"What kind of a lay-out is this?" inquired Orde. 

The dealer held up the three cards face out. 

"What kind of an eye have you got, bub?" he asked. 

"Oh, I don't know. A pretty fair eye. Why?"

"Do you think you could pick out the jack when I throw them out likethis?" asked the dealer. 

"Sure! She's that one. "

"Well, " exclaimed the gambler with a pretence of disgust, "damn if youdidn't! I bet you five dollars you can't do it again. "

"Take you!" replied Orde. "Put up your five. "

Again Orde was permitted to pick the jack. 

"You've got the best eye that's been in this place since I got here, "claimed the dealer admiringly. "Here, Dennis, " said he to his partner, "try if you can fool this fellow. "

Dennis obligingly took the cards, threw them, and lost. By this timethe men, augmented by the idlers not busy with the card games, had drawnclose. 

"Sail into 'em, bub, " encouraged one. 

Whether it was that the gamblers, expert in the reading of a man's moodand intentions, sensed the fact that Orde might be led to plunge, orwhether, more simply, they were using him as a capper to draw the crowdinto their game, it would be difficult to say, but twice more theybungled the throw and permitted him to win. 

Newmark plucked him at the sleeve. 

"You're twenty dollars ahead, " he muttered. "Quit it! I never sawanybody beat this game that much before. "

Orde merely shrugged him off with an appearance of growing excitement, while an HABITUE of the place, probably one of the hired fighters, growled into Newmark's ear. 

"Shut up, you damn dude!" warned this man. "Keep out of what ain't noneof your business. "

"What limit do you put on this game, anyway?" Orde leaned forward, hiseyes alight. 

The two gamblers spoke swiftly apart. 

"How much do you want to bet?" asked one. 

"Would you stand for five hundred dollars?" asked Orde. 

A dead silence fell on the group. Plainly could be heard the men'squickened breathing. The shouts and noise from the card partiesblundered through the stillness. Some one tiptoed across and whisperedin the ear of the nearest player. A moment later the chairs at the twotables scraped back. One of them fell violently to the floor. Theiroccupants joined the tense group about the monte game. All the girlsdrew near. Only behind the bar the white-aproned bartenders wiped theirglasses with apparent imperturbability, their eyes, however, on theirbrass knuckles hanging just beneath the counter, their ears pricked upfor the riot call. 

The gambler pretended to deliberate, his cool, shifty eyes running overthe group before him. A small door immediately behind him swung slowlyajar an inch or so. 

"Got the money?" he asked. 

"Have you?" countered Orde. 

Apparently satisfied, the man nodded. 

"I'll go you, bub, if I lose, " said he. "Lay out your money. "

Orde counted out nine fifty-dollar bills and five tens. Probably no onein the group of men standing about had realised quite how much moneyfive hundred dollars meant until they saw it thus tallied out beforethem. 

"All right, " said the gambler, taking up the cards. 

"Hold on!" cried Orde. "Where's yours?"

"Oh, that's all right, " the gambler reassured him. "I'm with the house. I guess McNeill's credit is good, " he laughed. 

"That may all be, " insisted Orde, "but I'm putting up my good money, andI expect to see good money put up in return. "

They wrangled over this point for some time, but Orde was obstinate. Finally the gamblers yielded. A canvass of the drawer, helped out by thebar and the other games, made up the sum. It bulked large on the tablebeside Orde's higher denominations. 

The interested audience now consisted of the dozen men comprised byOrde's friends; nearly twice as many strangers, evidently rivermen;eight hangers-on of the joint, probably fighters and "bouncers"; half adozen professional gamblers, and several waitresses. The four barkeepersstill held their positions. Of these, the rivermen were scatteredloosely back of Orde, although Orde's own friends had by now gatheredcompactly enough at his shoulder. The mercenaries and gamblers haddivided, and flanked the table at either side. Newmark, a growing wonderand disgust creeping into his usually unexpressive face, recognisedthe strategic advantage of this arrangement. In case of difficulty, a determined push would separate the rivermen from the gamblers longenough for the latter to disappear quietly through the small door at theback. 

"Satisfied?" inquired the gambler briefly. 

"Let her flicker, " replied Orde with equal brevity. 

A gasp of anticipation went up. Quite coolly the gambler made hispasses. With equal coolness and not the slightest hesitation, Ordeplanted his great red fist on one of the cards. 

"That is the jack, " he announced, looking the gambler in the eye. 

"Oh, is it?" sneered the dealer. "Well, turn it over and let's see. "

"No!" roared Orde. "YOU TURN OVER THE OTHER TWO!"

A low oath broke from the gambler, and his face contorted in a spasm. The barkeepers slid out from behind the bar. For a moment the situationwas tense and threatening. The dealer with a sweeping glance againsearched the faces of those before him. In that moment, probably, hemade up his mind that an open scandal must be avoided. Force and brokenbones, even murder, might be all right enough under colour of right. IfOrde had turned up for a jack the card on which he now held his fist, and then had attempted to prove cheating, a cry of robbery and a livelyfight would have given opportunity for making way with the stakes. But McNeill's could not afford to be shown up before thirty interestedrivermen as running an open-and-shut brace-game. However, the gamblermade a desperate try at what he must have known was a very forlorn hope. 

"That isn't the way this game is played, " said he. "Show up your jack. "

"It's the way I play it, " replied Orde sternly. "These gentlemen heardthe bet. " He reached over and dexterously flipped over the other twocards. "You see, neither of these is the jack; this must be. "

"You win, " assented the gambler, after a pause. 

Orde, his fist still on the third card, began pocketing the stakes withthe other hand. The gambler reached, palm up, across the table. 

"Give me the other card, " said he. 

Orde picked it up, laughing. For a moment he seemed to hesitate, holdingthe bit of pasteboard tantalisingly outstretched, as though he weregoing to turn also this one face up. Then, quite deliberately he lookedto right and to left where the fighters awaited their signal, laughedagain, and handed the card to the gambler. 

At once pandemonium broke loose. The rivermen of Orde's party fairlyshouted with joy over the unexpected trick; the employees of the resortwhispered apart; the gambler explained, low-voiced and angry, hisreasons for not putting up a fight for so rich a stake. 

"All to the bar!" yelled Orde. 

They made a rush, and lined up and ordered their drinks. Orde poured hison the floor and took the glass belonging to the man next him. 

"Get them to give you another, Tim, " said he. "No knock-out drops, if Ican help it. "

The men drank, and some one ordered another round. 

"Tim, " said Orde, low-voiced, "get the crowd together and we'll pullout. I've a thousand dollars on me, and they'll sand-bag me sure if I goalone. And let's get out right off. "

Ten minutes later they all stood safely on the lighted thoroughfare ofWater Street. 

"Good-night, boys, " said Orde. "Go easy, and show up at the boomsMonday. "

He turned up the street toward the main part of the town. Newmark joinedhim. 

"I'll walk a little ways with you, " he explained. "And I say, Orde, Iwant to apologise to you. 'Most of the evening I've been thinking youthe worst fool I ever saw, but you can take care of yourself at everystage of the game. The trick was good, but your taking the otherfellow's drink beat it. "

VIII

Orde heard no more of Newmark--and hardly thought of him--until over twoweeks later. 

In the meantime the riverman, assuming the more conventional garmentsof civilisation, lived with his parents in the old Orde homestead at theedge of town. This was a rather pretentious two-story brick structure, in the old solid, square architecture, surrounded by a small orchard, some hickories, and a garden. Orde's father had built it when he arrivedin the pioneer country from New England forty years before. At that timeit was considered well out in the country. Since then the town hadcrept to it, so that the row of grand old maples in front shaded astone-guttered street. A little patch of corn opposite, and many stillvacant lots above, placed it, however, as about the present limit ofgrowth. 

Jack Orde was the youngest and most energetic of a large family that hadlong since scattered to diverse cities and industries. He and Grandpaand Grandma Orde dwelt now in the big, echoing, old-fashioned housealone, save for the one girl who called herself the "help" rather thanthe servant. Grandpa Orde, now above sixty, was tall, straight, slender. His hair was quite white, and worn a little long. His features werefinely chiselled and aquiline. From them looked a pair of piercing, young, black eyes. In his time, Grandpa Orde had been a mighty breakerof the wilderness; but his time had passed, and with the advent of amore intensive civilisation he had fallen upon somewhat straitened ways. Grandma Orde, on the other hand, was a very small, spry old lady, witha small face, a small figure, small hands and feet. She dressed in thethen usual cap and black silk of old ladies. Half her time she spent ather housekeeping, which she loved, jingling about from cellar to atticstore-room, seeing that Amanda, the "help, " had everything in order. The other half she sat in a wooden "Dutch" rocking-chair by a windowoverlooking the garden. Her silk-shod feet rested neatly side by sideon a carpet-covered hassock, her back against a gay tapestried cushion. Near her purred big Jim, a maltese rumoured to weigh fifteen pounds. Above her twittered a canary. 

And the interior of the house itself was in keeping. The low ceilings, the slight irregularities of structure peculiar to the ratherrule-of-thumb methods of the earlier builders, the deep windowembrasures due to the thickness of the walls, the unexpected passagesleading to unsuspected rooms, and the fact that many of these apartmentswere approached by a step or so up or a step or so down--these lentto it a quaint, old-fashioned atmosphere enhanced further by the steelengravings, the antique furnishings, the many-paned windows, and allthe belongings of old people who have passed from a previous generationuntouched by modern ideas. 

To this house and these people Orde came direct from the greatness ofthe wilderness and the ferocity of Hell's Half-Mile. Such contrasts werepossible even ten or fifteen years ago. The untamed country lay at thedoors of the most modern civilisation. 

Newmark, reappearing one Sunday afternoon at the end of the two weeks, was apparently bothered. He examined the Orde place for some moments;walked on beyond it; finding nothing there, he returned, and after somehesitation turned in up the tar sidewalk and pulled at the old-fashionedwire bell-pull. Grandma Orde herself answered the door. 

At sight of her fine features, her dainty lace cap and mitts, and thestiffness of her rustling black silks, Newmark took off his gray felthat. 

"Good-afternoon, " said he. "Will you kindly tell me where Mr. Ordelives?"

"This is Mr. Orde's, " replied the little old lady. 

"Pardon me, " persisted Newmark, "I am looking for Mr. Jack Orde, and Iwas directed here. I am sorry to have troubled you. "

"Mr. Jack Orde lives here, " returned Grandma Orde. "He is my son. Wouldyou like to see him?"

"If you please, " assented Newmark gravely, his thin, shrewd face maskingitself with its usual expression of quizzical cynicism. 

"Step this way, please, and I'll call him, " requested his interlocutor, standing aside from the doorway. 

Newmark entered the cool, dusky interior, and was shown to the left intoa dim, long room. He perched on a mahogany chair, and had time to noticethe bookcases with the white owl atop, the old piano with the yellowingkeys, the haircloth sofa and chairs, the steel engravings, and the twooil portraits, when Orde's large figure darkened the door. 

For an instant the young man, who must just have come in from theoutside sunshine, blinked into the dimness. Newmark, too, blinked back, although he could by this time see perfectly well. 

Newmark had known Orde only as a riverman. Like most Easterners, thenand now, he was unable to imagine a man in rough clothes as beinganything but essentially a rough man. The figure he saw before himwas decently and correctly dressed in what was then the proper Sundaycostume. His big figure set off the cloth to advantage, and even hiswind-reddened face seemed toned down and refined by the change incostume and surroundings. 

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Newmark!" cried Orde in his hearty way, and holdingout his hand. "I'm glad to see you. Where you been? Come on out ofthere. This is the 'company place. '" Without awaiting a reply, he ledthe way into the narrow hall, whence the two entered another, brighterroom, in which Grandma Orde sat, the canary singing above her head. 

"Mother, " said Orde, "this is Mr. Newmark, who was with us on the drivethis spring. "

Grandma Orde laid her gold-bowed glasses and her black leather Bible onthe stand beside her. 

"Mr. Newmark and I spoke at the door, " said she, extending her frailhand with dignity. "If you were on the drive, Mr. Newmark, you must havebeen one of the High Privates in this dreadful war we all read about. "

Newmark laughed and made some appropriate reply. A few moments later, at Orde's suggestion, the two passed out a side door and back into theremains of the old orchard. 

"It's pretty nice here under the trees, " said Orde. "Sit down and lightup. Where you been for the last couple of weeks?"

"I caught Johnson's drive and went on down river with him to the lake, "replied Newmark, thrusting the offered cigar in one corner of his mouthand shaking his head at Orde's proffer of a light. 

"You must like camp life. "

"I do not like it at all, " negatived Newmark emphatically, "but thedrive interested me. It interested me so much that I've come back totalk to you about it. "

"Fire ahead, " acquiesced Orde. 

"I'm going to ask you a few questions about yourself, and you can answerthem or not, just as you please. "

"Oh, I'm not bashful about my career, " laughed Orde. 

"How old are you?" inquired Newmark abruptly. 

"Thirty. "

"How long have you been doing that sort of thing--driving, I mean?"

"Off and on, about six years. "

"Why did you go into that particular sort of thing?"

Orde selected a twig and carefully threw it at a lump in the turf. 

"Because there's nothing ahead of shovelling but dirt, " he replied witha quaint grin. 

"I see, " said Newmark, after a pause. "Then you think there's morefuture to that sort of thing than the sort of thing the rest of yourfriends go in for--law, and wholesale groceries, and banking and therest of it?"

"There is for me, " replied Orde simply. 

"Yet you're merely river-driving on a salary at thirty. "

Orde flushed slowly, and shifted his position. 

"Exactly so--Mr. District Attorney, " he said drily. 

Newmark started from his absorption in his questioning and shifted hisunlighted cigar. 

"Does sound like it, " he admitted; "but I'm not asking all this out ofidle curiosity. I've got a scheme in my head that I think may work outbig for us both. "

"Well, " assented Orde reservedly, "in that case--I'm foreman on thisdrive because my outfit went kerplunk two years ago, and I'm making afresh go at it. "

"Failed?" inquired Newmark. 

"Partner skedaddled, " replied Orde. "Now, if you're satisfied with myfamily history, suppose you tell me what the devil you're driving at. "

He was plainly restive under the cross-examination to which he had beensubjected. 

"Look here, " said Newmark, abruptly changing the subject, "you know thatrapids up river flanked by shallows, where the logs are always goingaground?"

"I do, " replied Orde, still grim. 

"Well, why wouldn't it help to put a string of piers down both sides, with booms between them to hold the logs in the deeper water?"

"It would, " said Orde. 

"Why isn't it done, then?"

"Who would do it?" countered Orde, leaning back more easily in theinterest of this new discussion. "If Daly did it, for instance, then allthe rest of the drivers would get the advantage of it for nothing. "

"Get them to pay their share. "

Orde grinned. "I'd like to see you get any three men to agree toanything on this river. "

"And a sort of dam would help at that Spruce Rapids?"

"Sure! If you improved the river for driving, she'd be easier to drive. That goes without saying. "

"How many firms drive logs on this stream?"

"Ten, " replied Orde, without hesitation. 

"How many men do they employ?"

"Driving?" asked Orde. 

"Driving. "

"About five hundred; a few more or less. "

"Now suppose, " Newmark leaned forward impressively, "suppose a firmshould be organised to drive ALL the logs on the river. Suppose itimproved the river with necessary piers, dams, and all the rest of it, so that the driving would be easier. Couldn't it drive with less thanfive hundred men, and couldn't it save money on the cost of driving?"

"It might, " agreed Orde. 

"You know the conditions here. If such a firm should be organisedand should offer to drive the logs for these ten firms at so much athousand, do you suppose it would get the business?"

"It would depend on the driving firm, " said Orde. "You see, mill menhave got to have their logs. They can't afford to take chances. Itwouldn't pay. "

"Then that's all right, " agreed Newmark, with a gleam of satisfactionacross his thin face. "Would you form a partnership with me having suchan object in view?"

Orde threw back his head and laughed with genuine amusement. 

"I guess you don't realise the situation, " said he. "We'd have to have afew little things like distributing booms, and tugs, and a lot of toolsand supplies and works of various kinds. "

"Well, we'd get them. "

It was now Orde's turn to ask questions. 

"How much are you worth?" he inquired bluntly. 

"About twenty thousand dollars, " replied Newmark. 

"Well, if I raise very much more than twenty thousand cents, I'm luckyjust now. "

"How much capital would we have to have?" asked Newmark. 

Orde thought for several minutes, twisting the petal of an oldapple-blossom between his strong, blunt fingers. 

"Somewhere near seventy-five thousand dollars, " he estimated at last. 

"That's easy, " cried Newmark. "We'll make a stock company--say a hundredthousand shares. We'll keep just enough between us to control thecompany--say fifty-one thousand. I'll put in my pile, and you can payfor yours out of the earnings of the company. "

"That doesn't sound fair, " objected Orde. 

"You pay interest, " explained Newmark. "Then we'll sell the rest of thestock to raise the rest of the money. "

"If we can, " interjected Orde. 

"I think we can, " asserted Newmark. 

Orde fell into a brown study, occasionally throwing a twig or a particleof earth at the offending lump in the turf. Overhead the migratorywarblers balanced right-side up or up-side down, searching busily amongthe new leaves, uttering their simple calls. The air was warm and softand still, the sky bright. Fat hens clucked among the grasses. A feel ofSunday was in the air. 

"I must have something to live on, " said he thoughtfully at last. 

"So must I, " said Newmark. "We'll have to pay ourselves salaries, ofcourse, but the smaller the better at first. You'll have to take chargeof the men and the work and all the rest of it--I don't know anythingabout that. I'll attend to the incorporating and the routine, and I'lltry to place the stock. You'll have to see, first of all, whether youcan get contracts from the logging firms to drive the logs. "

"How can I tell what to charge them?"

"We'll have to figure that very closely. You know where these differentdrives would start from, and how long each of them would take?"

"Oh, yes; I know the river pretty well. "

"Well, then we'll figure how many days' driving there is for each, andhow many men there are, and what it costs for wages, grub, tools--we'lljust have to figure as near as we can to the actual cost, and then add amargin for profit and for interest on our investment. "

"It might work out all right, " admitted Orde. 

"I'm confident it would, " asserted Newmark. "And there'd be no harmfiguring it all out, would there?"

"No, " agreed Orde, "that would be fun all right. "

At this moment Amanda appeared at the back door and waved an apron. 

"Mr. Jack!" she called. "Come in to dinner. "

Newmark looked puzzled, and, as he arose, glanced surreptitiously at hiswatch. Orde seemed to take the summons as one to be expected, however. In fact, the strange hour was the usual Sunday custom in the Redding ofthat day, and had to do with the late-church freedom of Amanda and herlike. 

"Come in and eat with us, " invited Orde. "We'd be glad to have you. "

But Newmark declined. 

"Come up to-morrow night, then, at half-past six, for supper, " Ordeurged him. "We can figure on these things a little. I'm in Daly's allday, and hardly have time except evenings. "

To this Newmark assented. Orde walked with him down the deep-shadeddriveway with the clipped privet hedge on one side, to the iron gatethat swung open when one drove over a projecting lever. There he saidgood-bye. 

A moment later he entered the long dining-room, where Grandpa andGrandma Orde were already seated. An old-fashioned service of smoothsilver and ivory-handled steel knives gave distinction to the plainwhite linen. A tea-pot smothered in a "cosey" stood at Grandma Orde'sright. A sirloin roast on a noble platter awaited Grandpa Orde's knife. 

Orde dropped into his place with satisfaction. 

"Shut up, Cheep!" he remarked to a frantic canary hanging in thesunshine. 

"Your friend seems a nice-appearing young man, " said Grandma Orde. "Wouldn't he stay to dinner?"

"I asked him, " replied Orde, "but he couldn't. He and I have a schemefor making our everlasting fortunes. "

"Who is he?" asked grandma. 

Orde dropped his napkin into his lap with a comical chuckle of dismay. 

"Blest if I have the slightest idea, mother, " he said. "Newmark joinedus on the drive. Said he was a lawyer, and was out in the woods for hishealth. He's been with us, studying and watching the work, ever since. "

IX

"I think I'll go see Jane Hubbard this evening, " Orde remarked to hismother, as he arose from the table. This was his method of announcingthat he would not be home for supper. 

Jane Hubbard lived in a low one-story house of blue granite, situatedamid a grove of oaks at the top of the hill. She was a kindly girl, whose parents gave her free swing, and whose house, in consequence, waspopular with the younger people. Every Sunday she offered to all whocame a "Sunday-night lunch, " which consisted of cold meats, cold salad, bread, butter, cottage cheese, jam, preserves, and the like, warmed bya cup of excellent tea. These refreshments were served by the gueststhemselves. It did not much matter how few or how many came. 

On the Sunday evening in question Orde found about the usual crowdgathered. Jane herself, tall, deliberate in movement and in speech, kindly and thoughtful, talked in a corner with Ernest Colburn, who wasjust out of college, and who worked in a bank. Mignonne Smith, a plump, rather pretty little body with a tremendous aureole of hair like spungolden fire, was trying to balance a croquet-ball on the end of a ruler. The ball regularly fell off. Three young men, standing in attentiveattitudes, thereupon dove forward in an attempt to catch it beforeit should hit the floor--which it generally did with a loud thump. A collapsed chair of slender lines stacked against the wall attestedprevious acrobatics. This much Orde, standing in the doorway, lookedupon quite as the usual thing. Only he missed the Incubus. Searching theroom with his eyes, he at length discovered that incoherent, desiccated, but persistent youth VIS-A-VIS with a stranger. Orde made out the whiteof her gown in the shadows, the willowy outline of her small and slenderfigure, and the gracious forward bend of her head. 

The company present caught sight of Orde standing in the doorway, andsuspended occupations to shout at him joyfully. He was evidently afavourite. The strange girl in the corner turned to him a white, longface, of which he could see only the outline and the redness of the lipswhere the lamplight reached them. She leaned slightly forward and thelips parted. Orde's muscular figure, standing square and uncompromisingin the doorway, the out-of-door freshness of his complexion, thesteadiness of his eyes laughing back a greeting, had evidently attractedher. Or perhaps anything was a relief from the Incubus. 

"So you're back at last, are you, Jack?" drawled Jane in her lazy, good-natured way. "Come and meet Miss Bishop. Carroll, I want to presentMr. Orde. "

Orde bowed ceremoniously into the penumbra cast by the lamp's broadshade. The girl inclined gracefully her small head with the glossy hair. The Incubus, his thin hands clasped on his knee, his sallow face twistedin one of its customary wry smiles, held to the edge of his chair withcharacteristic pertinacity. 

"Well, Walter, " Orde addressed him genially, "are you having a goodtime?"

"Yes-indeed!" replied the Incubus as though it were one word. 

His chair was planted squarely to exclude all others. Orde surveyed thesituation with good-humour. 

"Going to keep the other fellow from getting a chance, I see. "

"Yes-indeed!" replied the Incubus. 

Orde bent over, and with great ease lifted Incubus, chair, and all, andset him facing Mignonne Smith and the croquet-ball. 

"Here, Mignonne, " said he, "I've brought you another assistant. "

He returned to the lamp, to find the girl, her dark eyes alight withamusement, watching him intently. She held the tip of a closed fanagainst her lips, which brought her head slightly forward in an attitudeas though she listened. Somehow there was about her an air of poise, of absolute balanced repose quite different from Jane's rather awkwardstatics, and in direct contrast to Mignonne's dynamics. 

"Walter is a very bright man in his own line, " said Orde, swingingforward a chair, "but he mustn't be allowed any monopolies. "

"How do you know I want him so summarily removed?" the girl asked him, without changing either her graceful attitude of suspended motion or theintentness of her gaze. 

"Well, " argued Orde, "I got him to say all he ever says to anygirl--'Yes-indeed!'--so you couldn't have any more conversation fromhim. If you want to look at him, why, there he is in plain sight. Besides, I want to talk to you myself. "

"Do you always get what you want?" inquired the girl. 

Orde laughed. 

"Any one can get anything he wants, if only he wants it bad enough, " heasserted. 

The girl pondered this for a moment, and finally lowered and opened herfan, and threw back her head in a more relaxed attitude. 

"Some people, " she amended. "However, I forgive you. I will even flatteryou by saying I am glad you came. You look to have reached the age ofdiscretion. I venture to say that these boys' idea of a lively eveningis to throw bread about the table. "

Orde flushed a little. The last time he had supped at Jane Hubbard's, that was exactly what they did do. 

"They are young, of course, " he said, "and you and I are very old andwise. But having a noisy, good time isn't such a great crime--or is itwhere you came from?"

The girl leaned forward, a sparkle of interest in her eyes. 

"Are you and I going to fight?" she demanded. 

"That depends on you, " returned Orde squarely, but with perfectgood-humour. 

They eyed each other a moment. Then the girl closed her fan, and leanedforward to touch him on the arm with it. 

"You are quite right not to allow me to say mean things about yourfriends, and I am a nasty little snip. "

Orde bowed with sudden gravity. 

"And they do throw bread, " said he. 

They both laughed. She leaned back with a movement of satisfaction, seeming to sink into the shadows. 

"Now, tell me; what do you do?"

"What do I do?" asked Orde, puzzled. 

"Yes. Everybody does something out West here. It's a disgrace not to dosomething, isn't it?"

"Oh, my business! I'm a river-driver just now. "

"A river-driver?" she repeated, once more leaning forward. "Why, I'vejust been hearing a great deal about you. "

"That so?" he inquired. 

"Yes, from Mrs. Baggs. "

"Oh!" said Orde. "Then you know what a drunken, swearing, worthless lotof bums and toughs we are, don't you?"

For the first time, in some subtle way she broke the poise of herattitude. 

"There is Hell's Half-Mile, " she reminded him. 

"Oh, yes, " said Orde bitterly, "there's Hell's Half-Mile! Whose faultis that? My rivermen's? My boys? Look here! I suppose you couldn'tunderstand it, if you tried a month; but suppose you were working out inthe woods nine months of the year, up early in the morning and in lateat night. Suppose you slept in rough blankets, on the ground or inbunks, ate rough food, never saw a woman or a book, undertook work toscare your city men up a tree and into a hole too easy, risked your lifea dozen times a week in a tangle of logs, with the big river roaringbehind just waiting to swallow you; saw nothing but woods and river, were cold and hungry and wet, and so tired you couldn't wiggle, untilyou got to feeling like the thing was never going to end, and until yougot sick of it way through in spite of the excitement and danger. Andthen suppose you hit town, where there were all the things you hadn'thad--and the first thing you struck was Hell's Half-Mile. Say! you'veseen water behind a jam, haven't you? Water-power's a good thing in amill course, where it has wheels to turn; but behind a jam it just RIPSthings--oh, what's the use talking! A girl doesn't know what it means. She couldn't understand. "

He broke off with an impatient gesture. She was looking at him intently, her lips again half-parted. 

"I think I begin to understand a little, " said she softly. She smiled toherself. "But they are a hard and heartless class in spite of all theirenergy and courage, aren't they?" she drew him out. 

"Hard and heartless!" exploded Orde. "There's no kinder lot of men onearth, let me tell you. Why, there isn't a man on that river who doesn'tchip in five or ten dollars when a man is hurt or killed; and that meansthree or four days' hard work for him. And he may not know or like theinjured man at all! Why--"

"What's all the excitement?" drawled Jane Hubbard behind them. "Can'tyou make it a to-be-continued-in-our-next? We're 'most starved. "

"Yes-indeed!" chimed in the Incubus. 

The company trooped out to the dining-room where the table, spread withall the good things, awaited them. 

"Ernest, you light the candles, " drawled Jane, drifting slowly along thetable with her eye on the arrangements, "and some of you boys go get thebutter and the milk-pitcher from the ice-box. "

To Orde's relief, no one threw any bread, although the whole-heartedfun grew boisterous enough before the close of the meal. Miss Bishop satdirectly across from him. He had small chance of conversation with herin the hubbub that raged, but he gained full leisure to examine hermore closely in the fuller illumination. Throughout, her note was offineness. Her hands, as he had already noticed, were long, the fingerstapering; her wrists were finely moulded, but slender, and runningwithout abrupt swelling of muscles into the long lines of her forearm;her figure was rounded, but built on the curves of slenderness; herpiled, glossy hair was so fine that though it was full of wonderfulsoft shadows denied coarser tresses, its mass hardly did justice toits abundance. Her face, again, was long and oval, with a peculiartransparence to the skin and a peculiar faint, healthy circulationof the blood well below the surface, which relieved her complexion ofpallor, but did not give her a colour. The lips, on the contrary, weresatin red, and Orde was mildly surprised, after his recent talk, to findthem sensitively moulded, and with a quaint, child-like quirk at thecorners. Her eyes were rather contemplative, and so black as to resemblespots. 

In spite of her half-scornful references to "bread-throwing, " she joinedwith evident pleasure in the badinage and more practical fun whichstruck the note of the supper. Only Orde thought to discern even in hermore boisterous movements a graceful, courteous restraint, to catch inthe bend of her head a dainty concession to the joy of the moment, to hear in the tones of her laughter a reservation of herself, whichnevertheless was not at all a reservation, against the others. 

After the meal was finished, each had his candle to blow out, and thenall returned to the parlour, leaving the debris for the later attentionof the "hired help. "

Orde with determination made his way to Miss Bishop's side. She smiledat him. 

"You see, I am a hypocrite as well as a mean little snip, " said she. "Ithrew a little bread myself. "

"Threw bread?" repeated Orde. "I didn't see you. "

"The moon is made of green cheese, " she mocked him, "and there arecountries where men's heads do grow beneath their shoulders. " She movedgracefully away toward Jane Hubbard. "Do you Western 'business men'never deal in figures of speech as well as figures of the other sort?"she wafted back to him over her shoulder. 

"I was very stupid, " acknowledged Orde, following her. 

She stopped and faced him in the middle of the room, smilingquizzically. 

"Well?" she challenged. 

"Well, what?" asked Orde, puzzled. 

"I thought perhaps you wanted to ask me something. "

"Why?"

"Your following me, " she explained, the corners of her mouth smiling. "Ihad turned away--"

"I just wanted to talk to you, " said Orde. 

"And you always get what you want, " she repeated. "Well?" she conceded, with a shrug of mock resignation. But the four other men here cut inwith a demand. 

"Music!" they clamoured. "We want music!"

With a nod, Miss Bishop turned to the piano, sweeping aside her whitedraperies as she sat. She struck a few soft chords, and then, her longhands wandering idly and softly up and down the keys, she smiled at themover her shoulder. 

"What shall it be?" she inquired. 

Some one thrust an open song-book on the rack in front of her. Theothers gathered close about, leaning forward to see. 

Song followed song, at first quickly, then at longer intervals. At lastthe members of the chorus dropped away one by one to occupations oftheir own. The girl still sat at the piano, her head thrown back idly, her hands wandering softly in and out of melodies and modulations. Watching her, Orde finally saw only the shimmer of her white figure, andthe white outline of her head and throat. All the rest of the room wasgray from the concentration of his gaze. At last her hands fell in herlap. She sat looking straight ahead of her. 

Orde at once arose and came to her. 

"That was a wonderfully quaint and beautiful thing, " said he. "What wasit?"

She turned to him, and he saw that the mocking had gone from her eyesand mouth, leaving them quite simple, like a child's. 

"Did you like it?" she asked. 

"Yes, " said Orde. He hesitated and stammered awkwardly. "It was so stilland soothing, it made me think of the river sometimes about dusk. Whatwas it?"

"It wasn't anything. I was improvising. "

"You made it up yourself?"

"It was myself, I suppose. I love to build myself a garden, andwander on until I lose myself in it. I'm glad there was a river in thegarden--a nice, still, twilight river. "

She flashed up at him, her head sidewise. 

"There isn't always. " She struck a crashing discord on the piano. 

Every one looked up at the sudden noise of it. 

"Oh, don't stop!" they cried in chorus, as though each had beenlistening intently. 

The girl laughed up at Orde in amusement. Somehow this flash of anespecial understanding between them to the exclusion of the others senta warm glow to his heart. 

"I do wish you had your harp here, " said Jane Hubbard, coming indolentlyforward. "You just ought to hear her play the harp, " she told the rest. "It's just the best thing you ever DID hear!"

At this moment the outside door opened to admit Mr and Mrs. Hubbard, whohad, according to their usual Sunday custom, been spending the eveningwith a neighbour. This was the signal for departure. The company beganto break up. 

Orde pushed his broad shoulders in to screen Carroll Bishop from theothers. 

"Are you staying here?" he asked. 

She opened her eyes wide at his brusqueness. 

"I'm visiting Jane, " she replied at length, with an affectation ofdemureness. 

"Are you going to be here long?" was Orde's next question. 

"About a month. "

"I am coming to see you, " announced Orde. "Good-night. "

He took her hand, dropped it, and followed the others into the hall, leaving her standing by the lamp. She watched him until the outerdoor had closed behind him. Not once did he look back. Jane Hubbard, returning after a moment from the hall, found her at the piano again, her head slightly one side, playing with painful and accurate exactnessa simple one-finger melody. 

Orde walked home down the hill in company with the Incubus. Neither hadanything to say; Orde because he was absorbed in thought, the Incubusbecause nothing occurred to draw from him his one remark. Their feetclipped sharply against the tar walks, or rang more hollow on theboards. Overhead the stars twinkled through the still-bare branches ofthe trees. With few exceptions the houses were dark. People "retired"early in Redding. An occasional hall light burned dimly, awaiting someone's return. At the gate of the Orde place, Orde roused himself to saygood-night. He let himself into the dim-lighted hall, hung up hishat, and turned out the gas. For some time he stood in the dark, quite motionless; then, with the accuracy of long habitude, he walkedconfidently to the narrow stairs and ascended them. Subconsciously heavoided the creaking step, but outside his mother's door he stopped, arrested by a greeting from within. 

"That you, Jack?" queried Grandma Orde. 

For answer Orde pushed open the door, which stood an inch or so ajar, and entered. A dim light from a distant street-lamp, filtered throughthe branches of a tree, flickered against the ceiling. By its aidhe made out the great square bed, and divined the tiny figure of hismother. He seated himself sidewise on the edge of the bed. 

"Go to Jane's?" queried grandma in a low voice, to avoid awakeninggrandpa, who slept in the adjoining room. 

"Yes, " replied Orde, in the same tone. 

"Who was there?"

"Oh, about the usual crowd. "

He fell into an abstracted silence, which endured for several minutes. 

"Mother, " said he abruptly, at last, "I've met the girl I want for mywife. "

Grandma Orde sat up in bed. 

"Who is she?" she demanded. 

"Her name is Carroll Bishop, " said Orde, "and she's visiting JaneHubbard. "

"Yes, but WHO is she?" insisted Grandma Orde. "Where is she from?"

Orde stared at her in the dim light. 

"Why, mother, " he repeated for the second time that day, "blest if Iknow that!"

X

Orde was up and out at six o'clock the following morning. By eight hehad reported for work at Daly's mill, where, with the assistance of aportion of the river crew, he was occupied in sorting the logs in thebooms. Not until six o'clock in the evening did the whistle blow for theshut-down. Then he hastened home, to find that Newmark had preceded himby some few moments and was engaged in conversation with Grandma Orde. The young man was talking easily, though rather precisely and withbrevity. He nodded to Orde and finished his remark. 

After supper Orde led the way up two flights of narrow stairs to hisown room. This was among the gables, a chamber of strangely diversifiedceiling, which slanted here and there according to the demands of theroof outside. 

"Well, " said he, "I've made up my mind to-day to go in with you. It maynot work out, but it's a good chance, and I want to get in somethingthat looks like money. I don't know who you are, nor how much of abusiness man you are or what your experience is, but I'll risk it. "

"I'm putting in twenty thousand dollars, " pointed out Newmark. 

"And I'm putting in my everlasting reputation, " said Orde. "If we tellthese fellows that we'll get out their logs for them, and then don't doit, I'll be DEAD around here. "

"So that's about a stand-off, " said Newmark. "I'm betting twentythousand on what I've seen and heard of you, and you're risking yourreputation that I don't want to drop my money. "

Orde laughed. 

"And I reckon we're both right, " he responded. 

"Still, " Newmark pursued the subject, "I've no objection to telling youabout myself. New York born and bred; experience with Cooper and Dunne, brokers, eight years. Money from a legacy. Parents dead. No relatives tospeak to. "

Orde nodded gravely twice in acknowledgment. 

"Now, " said Newmark, "have you had time to do any figuring?"

"Well, " replied Orde, "I got at it a little yesterday afternoon, anda little this noon. I have a rough idea. " He produced a bundle ofscribbled papers from his coat-pocket. "Here you are. I take Daly asa sample, because I've been with his outfit. It costs him to run anddeliver his logs one hundred miles about two dollars a thousand feet. He's the only big manufacturer up here; the rest are all at Monrovia, where they can get shipping by water. I suppose it costs the othernine firms doing business on the river from two to two and a half athousand. "

Newmark produced a note-book and began to jot down figures. 

"Do these men all conduct separate drives?" he inquired. 

"All but Proctor and old Heinzman. They pool in together. "

"Now, " went on Newmark, "if we were to drive the whole river, how couldwe improve on that?"

"Well, I haven't got it down very fine, of course, " Orde told him, "butin the first place we wouldn't need so many men. I could run the riveron three hundred easy enough. That saves wages and grub on two hundredright there. And, of course, a few improvements on the river would savetime, which in our case would mean money. We would not need so manyseparate cook outfits and all that. Of course, that part of it we'd haveto get right down and figure on, and it will take time. Then, too, ifwe agreed to sort and deliver, we'd have to build sorting booms down atMonrovia. "

"Suppose we had all that. What, for example, do you reckon you couldbring Daly's logs down for?"

Orde fell into deep thought, from which he emerged occasionally toscribble on the back of his memoranda. 

"I suppose somewhere about a dollar, " he announced at last. He lookedup a trifle startled. "Why, " he cried, "that looks like big money! Ahundred per cent!"

Newmark watched him for a moment, a quizzical smile wrinkling thecorners of his eyes. 

"Hold your horses, " said he at last. "I don't know anything about thisbusiness, but I can see a few things. In the first place, close figuringwill probably add a few cents to that dollar. And then, of course, allour improvements will be absolutely valueless to anybody after we'vegot through using them. You said yesterday they'd probably stand us inseventy-five thousand dollars. Even at a dollar profit, we'd have todrive seventy-five million before we got a cent back. And, ofcourse, we've got to agree to drive for a little less than they couldthemselves. "

"That's so, " agreed Orde, his crest falling. 

"However, " said Newmark briskly, as he arose, "there's good money in it, as you say. Now, how soon can you leave Daly?"

"By the middle of the week we ought to be through with this job. "

"That's good. Then we'll go into this matter of expense thoroughly, andestablish our schedule of rates to submit to the different firms. "

Newmark said a punctilious farewell to Mr. And Mrs. Orde. 

"By the way, " said Orde to him at the gate, "where are you staying?"

"At the Grand. "

"I know most of the people here--all the young folks. I'd be glad totake you around and get you acquainted. "

"Thank you, " replied Newmark, "you are very kind. But I don't go in muchfor that sort of thing, and I expect to be very busy now on this newmatter; so I won't trouble you. "

XI

The new partners, as soon as Orde had released himself from Daly, gaveall their time to working out a schedule of tolls. Orde drew on hisintimate knowledge of the river and its tributaries, and the locationsof the different rollways, to estimate as closely as possible the timeit would take to drive them. He also hunted up Tom North and othersof the older men domiciled in the cheap boarding-houses of Hell'sHalf-Mile, talked with them, and verified his own impressions. Together, he and Newmark visited the supply houses, got prices, obtained lists. All the evenings they figured busily, until at last Newmark expressedhimself as satisfied. 

"Now, Orde, " said he, "here is where you come in. It's now your job togo out and interview these men and get their contracts for driving theirnext winter's cut. "

But Orde drew back. 

"Look here, Joe, " he objected, "that's more in your line. You can talkbusiness to them better than I can. "

"Not a bit, " negatived Newmark. "They don't know me from Adam, and theydo know you, and all about you. We've got to carry this thing through atfirst on our face, and they'd be more apt to entrust the matter to youpersonally. "

"All right, " agreed Orde. "I'll start in on Daly. "

He did so the following morning. Daly swung his bulk around in hisrevolving office-chair and listened attentively. 

"Well, Jack, " said he, "I think you're a good riverman, and I believeyou can do it. I'd be only too glad to get rid of the nuisance of it, let alone get it done cheaper. If you'll draw up your contract and bringit in here, I'll sign it. I suppose you'll break out the rollways?"

"No, " said Orde; "we hadn't thought of doing more than the drivingand distributing. You'll have to deliver the logs in the river. Maybeanother year, after we get better organised, we'll be able to breakrollways--at a price per thousand--but until we get a-going we'll haveto rush her through. "

Orde repeated this to his associate. 

"That was smooth enough sailing, " he exulted. 

"Yes, " pondered Newmark, removing his glasses and tapping his thumb withtheir edge. "Yes, " he repeated, "that was smooth sailing. What was thatabout rollways?"

"Oh, I told him we'd expect him to break out his own, " said Orde. 

"Yes, but what does that mean exactly?"

"Why, " explained Orde, with a slight stare of surprise, "when thelogs are cut and hauled during the winter, they are banked on theriver-banks, and even in the river-channel itself. Then, when the thawscome in the spring, these piles are broken down and set afloat in theriver. "

"I see, " said Newmark. "Well, but why shouldn't we undertake that partof it? I should think that would he more the job of the river-drivers. "

"It would hold back our drive too much to have to stop and breakrollways, " explained Orde. 

The next morning they took the early train for Monrovia, where weresituated the big mills and the offices of the nine other lumbercompanies. Within an hour they had descended at the small frame terminalstation, and were walking together up the village street. 

Monrovia was at that time a very spread-out little place of perhaps twothousand population. It was situated a half mile from Lake Michigan, behind the sparsely wooded sand hills of its shore. From the river, which had here grown to a great depth and width, its main street randirectly at right angles. Four brick blocks of three stories lentimpressiveness to the vista. The stores in general, however, were lowframe structures. All faced broad plank sidewalks raised above thestreet to the level of a waggon body. From this main street ran off, to right and left, other streets, rendered lovely by maple trees thatfairly met across the way. In summer, over sidewalk and roadway alikerested a dense, refreshing dark shadow that seemed to throw from itselfan odour of coolness. This was rendered further attractive by thewarm spicy odour of damp pine that arose from the resilient surface ofsawdust and shingles broken beneath the wheels of traffic. Backfrom these trees, in wide, well-cultivated lawns, stood the betterresidences. They were almost invariably built of many corners, withsteep roofs meeting each other at all angles, with wide and ornamentedred chimneys, numerous windows, and much scroll work adorning each apexand cornice. The ridge poles bristled in fancy foot-high palisades ofwood. Chimneys were provided with lightning-rods. Occasionally anolder structure, on square lines, recorded the era of a more dignifiedarchitecture. Everywhere ran broad sidewalks and picket fences. Beyondthe better residence districts were the board shanties of the millworkers. 

Orde and Newmark tramped up the plank walk to the farthest brickbuilding. When they came to a cross street, they had to descend to itby a short flight of steps on one side, and ascend from it by acorresponding flight on the other. At the hotel, Newmark seated himselfin a rocking-chair next the big window. 

"Good luck!" said he. 

Orde mounted a wide, dark flight of stairs that led from the street to adarker hall. The smell of stale cigars and cocoa matting was in theair. Down the dim length of this hall he made his way to a door, whichwithout ceremony he pushed open. 

He found himself in a railed-off space, separated from the main part ofthe room by a high walnut grill. 

"Mr. Heinzman in?" he asked of a clerk. 

"I think so, " replied the clerk, to whom evidently Orde was known. 

Orde spent the rest of the morning with Heinzman, a very rotund, cautious person of German extraction and accent. Heinzman occupiedthe time in asking questions of all sorts about the new enterprise. Attwelve he had not in any way committed himself nor expressed an opinion. He, however, instructed Orde to return the afternoon of the followingday. 

"I vill see Proctor, " said he. 

Orde, rather exhausted, returned to find Newmark still sitting in therocking-chair with his unlighted cigar. The two had lunch together, after which Orde, somewhat refreshed, started out. He succeeded ingetting two more promises of contracts and two more deferred interviews. 

"That's going a little faster, " he told Newmark cheerfully. 

The following morning, also, he was much encouraged by the receptionhis plan gained from the other lumbermen. At lunch he recapitulated toNewmark. 

"That's four contracts already, " said he, "and three more practicallya sure thing. Proctor and Heinzman are slower than molasses abouteverything, and mean as pusley, and Johnson's up in the air, the way healways is, for fear some one's going to do him. "

"It isn't a bad outlook, " admitted Newmark. 

But Heinzman offered a new problem for Orde's consideration. 

"I haf talked with Proctor, " said he, "and ve like your scheme. If youcan deliffer our logs here for two dollars and a quarter, why, that isbetter as ve can do it; but how do ve know you vill do it?"

"I'll guarantee to get them here all right, " laughed Orde. 

"But what is your guarantee good for?" persisted Heinzman blandly, locking his fingers over his rotund little stomach. "Suppose the logsare not deliffered--what then? How responsible are you financially?"

"Well, we're investing seventy-five thousand dollars or so. "

Heinzman rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and wafted theimaginary pulverisation away. 

"Worth that for a judgment, " said he. 

He allowed a pause to ensue. 

"If you vill give a bond for the performance of your contract, " pursuedHeinzman, "that vould be satisfactory. "

Orde's mind was struck chaotic by the reasonableness of this request, and the utter impossibility of acceding to it. 

"How much of a bond?" he asked. 

"Twenty-fife thousand vould satisfy us, " said Heinzman. "Bring us asuitable bond for that amount and ve vill sign your contract. "

Orde ran down the stairs to find Newmark. "Heinzman won't sign unless wegive him a bond for performance, " he said in a low tone, as he droppedinto the chair next to Newmark. 

Newmark removed his unlighted cigar, looked at the chewed end, andreturned it to the corner of his mouth. 

"Heinzman has sense, " said he drily. "I was wondering if ordinarybusiness caution was unknown out here. "

"Can we get such a bond? Nobody would go on my bond for that amount. "

"Mine either, " said Newmark. "We'll just have to let them go and driveahead without them. I only hope they won't spread the idea. Better getthose other contracts signed up as soon as we can. "

With this object in view, Orde started out early the next morning, carrying with him the duplicate contracts on which Newmark had beenbusy. 

"Rope 'em in, " advised Newmark. "It's Saturday, and we don't want to letthings simmer over Sunday, if we can help it. "

About eleven o'clock a clerk of the Welton Lumber Co. Entered Mr. Welton's private office to deliver to Orde a note. 

"This just came by special messenger, " he explained. 

Orde, with an apology, tore it open. It was from Heinzman, and requestedan immediate interview. Orde delayed only long enough to get Mr. Welton's signature, then hastened as fast as his horse could take himacross the drawbridge to the village. 

Heinzman he found awaiting him. The little German, with his round, rosycheeks, his dot of a nose, his big spectacles, and his rotund body, looked even more than usual like a spider or a Santa Clause--Orde couldnot decide which. 

"I haf been thinking of that bond, " he began, waving a pudgy hand towarda seat, "and I haf been talking with Proctor. "

"Yes, " said Orde hopefully. 

"I suppose you would not be prepared to gif a bond?"

"I hardly think so. "

"Vell, suppose ve fix him this way, " went on Heinzman, clasping hishands over his stomach and beaming through his spectacles. "Proctor andI haf talked it ofer, and ve are agreet that the probosition is a goodone. Also ve think it is vell to help the young fellers along. " Helaughed silently in such a manner as to shake himself all over. "Ve donot vish to be too severe, and yet ve must be assured that ve get ourlogs on time. Now, I unterstood you to say that this new concern is astock company. "

Orde did not remember having said so, but he nodded. 

"Vell, if you gif us a bond secured with stock in the new company, thatwould be satisfactory to us. "

Orde's face cleared. 

"Do you mean that, Mr. Heinzman?"

"Sure. Ve must haf some security, but ve do not vish to be too hard onyou boys. "

"Now, I call that a mighty good way out!" cried Orde. 

"Make your contract out according to these terms, then, " said Heinzman, handing him a paper, "and bring it in Monday. "

Orde glanced over the slip. It recited two and a quarter as the agreedprice; specified the date of delivery at Heinzman and Proctor's booms;named twenty-five thousand dollars as the amount of the bond, to besecured by fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock in the new company. This looked satisfactory. Orde arose. 

"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Heinzman, " said he. "I'll bring it aroundMonday. "

He had reached the gate to the grill before Heinzman called him back. 

"By the vay, " the little German beamed up at him, swinging his fat legsas the office-chair tipped back on its springs, "if it is to be a stockcompany, you vill be selling some of the stock to raise money, is it notso?"

"Yes, " agreed Orde, "I expect so. "

"How much vill you capitalise for?"

"We expect a hundred thousand ought to do the trick, " replied Orde. 

"Vell, " said Heinzman, "ven you put it on the market, come and see me. "He nodded paternally at Orde, beaming through his thick spectacles. 

That evening, well after six, Orde returned to the hotel. Afterfreshening up in the marbled and boarded washroom, he hunted up Newmark. 

"Well, Joe, " said he, "I'm as hungry as a bear. Come on, eat, and I'lltell you all about it. "

They deposited their hats on the racks and pushed open the swingingscreen doors that led into the dining-room. There they were takenin charge by a marvellously haughty and redundant head-waitress, whosignalled them to follow down through ranks of small tables watchedby more stately damsels. Newmark, reserved and precise, irreproachablycorrect in his neat gray, seemed enveloped in an aloofness asimpenetrable as that of the head-waitress herself. Orde, however, was asbreezy as ever. He hastened his stride to overtake the head-waitress. 

"Annie, be good!" he said in his jolly way. "We've got business to talk. Put us somewhere alone. "

Newmark nodded approval, and thrust his hand in his pocket. But Annielooked up into Orde's frank, laughing face, and her lips curved ever sofaintly in the condescension of a smile. 

"Sure, sorr, " said she, in a most unexpected brogue. 

"Well, I've got 'em all, " said Orde, as soon as the waitress had gonewith the order. "But the best stroke of business you'd never guess. Iroped in Heinzman. "

"Good!" approved Newmark briefly. 

"It was really pretty decent of the little Dutchman. He agreed to let usput up our stock as security. Of course, that security is good only ifwe win out; and if we win out, why, then he'll get his logs, so he won'thave any use for security. So it's just one way of beating the devilaround the bush. He evidently wanted to give us the business, buthe hated like the devil to pass up his rules--you know how those oldshellbacks are. "

"H'm, yes, " said Newmark. 

The waitress sailed in through a violently kicked swinging door, bearingaloft a tin tray heaped perilously. She slanted around a corner ingraceful opposition to the centrifugal, brought the tray to port on asort of landing stage by a pillar, and began energetically to distributesmall "iron-ware" dishes, each containing a dab of something. When theclash of arrival had died, Orde went on:

"I got into your department a little, too. "

"How's that?" asked Newmark, spearing a baked potato. "Heinzman saidhe'd buy some of our stock. He seems to think we have a pretty goodshow. "

Newmark paused, his potato half-way to his plate. 

"Kind of him, " said he after a moment. "Did he sign a contract?"

"It wasn't made out, " Orde reminded him. "I've the memoranda here. We'llmake it out to-night. I am to bring it in Monday. "

"I see we're hung up here over Sunday, " observed Newmark. "No Sundaytrains to Redding. "

Orde became grave. 

"I know it. I tried to hurry matters to catch the six o'clock, butcouldn't make it. " His round, jolly face fell sombre, as though a lightwithin had been extinguished. After a moment the light returned. "Can'tbe helped, " said he philosophically. 

They ate hungrily, then drifted out into the office again, where Ordelit a cigar. 

"Now, let's see your memoranda, " said Newmark. 

He frowned over the three simple items for some time. 

"It's got me, " he confessed at last. 

"What?" inquired Orde. 

"What Heinzman is up to. "

"What do you mean?" asked Orde, turning in his chair with an air of slowsurprise. 

"It all looks queer to me. He's got something up his sleeve. Why shouldhe take a bond with that security from us? If we can't deliver the logs, our company fails; that makes the stock worthless; that makes the bondworthless--just when it is needed. Of course, it's as plain as the noseon your face that he thinks the proposition a good one and is trying toget control. "

"Oh, no!" cried Orde, astounded. 

"Orde, you're all right on the river, " said Newmark, with a dry littlelaugh, "but you're a babe in the woods at this game. "

"But Heinzman is honest, " cried Orde. "Why, he is a church member, andhas a class in Sunday-school. "

Newmark selected a cigar from his case, examined it from end to end, finally put it between his lips. The corners of his mouth were twitchingquietly with amusement. 

"Besides, he is going to buy some stock, " added Orde, after a moment. 

"Heinzman has not the slightest intention of buying a dollar's worth ofstock, " asserted Newmark. 

"But why--"

"--Did he make that bluff?" finished Newmark. "Because he wanted to findout how much stock would be issued. You told him it would be a hundredthousand dollars, didn't you?"

"Why--yes, I believe I did, " said Orde, pondering. Newmark threw backhis head and laughed noiselessly. 

"So now he knows that if we forfeit the bond he'll have controllinginterest, " he pointed out. 

Orde smoked rapidly, his brow troubled. 

"But what I can't make out, " reflected Newmark, "is why he's so surewe'll have to forfeit. "

"I think he's just taking a long shot at it, " suggested Orde, who seemedfinally to have decided against Newmark's opinion. "I believe you'reshying at mare's nests. "

"Not he. He has some good reason for thinking we won't deliver the logs. Why does he insist on putting in a date for delivery? None of the othersdoes. "

"I don't know, " replied Orde. "Just to put some sort of a time limit onthe thing, I suppose. "

"You say you surely can get the drive through by then?"

Orde laughed. 

"Sure? Why, it gives me two weeks' leeway over the worst possible luck Icould have. You're too almighty suspicious, Joe. "

Newmark shook his head. 

"You let me figure this out, " said he. 

But bedtime found him without a solution. He retired to his room underfire of Orde's good-natured raillery. Orde himself shut his door, thesmile still on his lips. As he began removing his coat, however, thesmile died. The week had been a busy one. Hardly had he exchanged adozen words with his parents, for he had even been forced to eat hisdinner and supper away from home. This Sunday he had promised himself tomake his deferred but much-desired call on Jane Hubbard--and her guest. He turned out the gas with a shrug of resignation. For the firsttime his brain cleared of its turmoil of calculations, of guesses, ofestimates, and of men. He saw clearly the limited illumination castdownward by the lamp beneath its wide shade, the graceful, white figureagainst the shadow of the easy chair, the oval face cut in half by thelamplight to show plainly the red lips with the quaint upward quirks atthe corners, and dimly the inscrutable eyes and the hair with the softshadows. With a sigh he fell asleep. 

Some time in the night he was awakened by a persistent tapping on thedoor. In the woodsman's manner, he was instantly broad awake. He litthe gas and opened the door to admit Newmark, partially dressed over hisnight gown. 

"Orde, " said he briefly and without preliminary, "didn't you tell me theother day that rollways were piled both on the banks and IN the river?"

"Yes, sometimes, " said Orde. "Why?

"Then they might obstruct the river?"

"Certainly. "

"I thought so!" cried Newmark, with as near an approach to exultation ashe ever permitted himself. "Now, just one other thing: aren't Heinzman'srollways below most of the others?"

"Yes, I believe they are, " said Orde. 

"And, of course, it was agreed, as usual, that Heinzman was to break outhis own rollways?"

"I see, " said Orde slowly. "You think he intends to delay things enoughso we can't deliver on the date agreed on. "

"I know it, " stated Newmark positively. 

"But if he refuses to deliver the logs, no court of law will--"

"Law!" cried Newmark. "Refuse to deliver! You don't know that kind. Hewon't refuse to deliver. There'll just be a lot of inevitable delays, and his foreman will misunderstand, and all that. You ought to know moreabout that than I do. "

Orde nodded, his eye abstracted. 

"It's a child-like scheme, " commented Newmark. "If I'd had moreknowledge of the business, I'd have seen it sooner. "

"I'd never have seen it at all, " said Orde humbly. "You seem to be thevaluable member of this firm, Joe. "

"In my way, " said Newmark, "you in yours. We ought to make a good team. "

XII

Sunday afternoon, Orde, leaving Newmark to devices of his own, walkedslowly up the main street, turned to the right down one of the shadedside residence streets that ended finally in a beautiful glisteningsand-hill. Up this he toiled slowly, starting at every step avalanchesand streams down the slope. Shortly he found himself on the summit, andpaused for a breath of air from the lake. 

He was just above the tops of the maples, which seen from this anglestretched away like a forest through which occasionally thrust roofs andspires. Some distance beyond a number of taller buildings and the redof bricks were visible. Beyond them still were other sand-hills, plantedraggedly with wind-twisted and stunted trees. But between the brickbuildings and these sand-hills flowed the river--wide, deep, andstill--bordered by the steamboat landings on the town side and byfishermen's huts and net-racks and small boats on the other. Orde seatedhimself on the smooth, clean sand and removed his hat. He saw thesethings, and in imagination the far upper stretches of the river, withthe mills and yards and booms extending for miles; and still above themthe marshes and the flats where the river widened below the Big Bend. That would be the location for the booms of the new company--a cheapproperty on which the partners had already secured a valuation. Andbelow he dropped in imagination with the slackening current untilbetween two greater sand-hills than the rest the river ran out throughthe channel made by two long piers to the lake--blue, restless, immeasurable. To right and left stretched the long Michigan coast, withits low yellow hills topped with the green of twisted pines, firs, andbeeches, with always its beach of sand, deep and dry to the very edge ofits tideless sea, strewn with sawlogs, bark, and the ancient remains ofships. 

After he had cooled he arose and made his way back to a pleasanthardwood forest of maple and beech. Here the leaves were just burstingfrom their buds. Underfoot the early spring flowers--the hepaticas, the anemones, the trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early, bright-green undergrowths--were just reaching their perfection. Migration was in full tide. Birds, little and big, flashed into view andout again, busy in the mystery of their northward pilgrimage, givingthe appearance of secret and silent furtiveness, yet each uttering hischaracteristic call from time to time, as though for a signal to othersof the host. The woods were swarming as city streets, yet to Orde theselittle creatures were as though invisible. He stood in the middle of agreat multitude, he felt himself under the observation of many brighteyes, he heard the murmuring and twittering that proclaimed a throng, he sensed an onward movement that flowed slowly but steadily toward thepole; nevertheless, a flash of wings, a fluttering little body, the dipof a hasty short flight, represented the visible tokens. Across the palesilver sun of April their shadows flickered, and with them flickered thetracery of new leaves and the delicacy of the lace-like upper branches. 

Orde walked slowly farther and farther into the forest, lost in anenjoyment which he could not have defined accurately, but which was sointegral a portion of his nature that it had drawn him from the banksand wholesale groceries to the woods. After a while he sat down on alog and lit his pipe. Ahead the ground sloped upward. Dimly through thehalf-fronds of the early season he could make out the yellow of sandsand the deep complementary blue of the sky above them. He knew the Laketo lie just beyond. With the thought he arose. A few moments later hestood on top the hill, gazing out over the blue waters. 

Very blue they were, with a contrasting snowy white fringe of wavesbreaking gently as far up the coast as the eye could reach. The beach, on these tideless waters, was hard and smooth only in the narrow stripover which ran the wash of the low surf. All the rest of the expanse ofsand back to the cliff-like hills lay dry and tumbled into hummocks anddrifts, from which projected here a sawlog cast inland from a raft bysome long-past storm, there a slab, again a ship's rib sticking gauntand defiant from the shifting, restless medium that would smother it. And just beyond the edge of the hard sand, following the long curves ofthe wash, lay a dark, narrow line of bark fragments. 

The air was very clear and crystalline. The light-houses on the ends ofthe twin piers, though some miles distant, seemed close at hand. Whiteherring gulls, cruising against the blue, flashed white as the sails ofa distant ship. A fresh breeze darkened the blue velvet surface of thewater, tumbled the white foam hissing up the beach, blew forward overthe dunes a fine hurrying mist of sand, and bore to Orde at last therefreshment of the wide spaces. A woman, walking slowly, bent her headagainst the force of this wind. 

Orde watched her idly. She held to the better footing of the smoothsand, which made it necessary that she retreat often before theinrushing wash, sometimes rather hastily. Orde caught himself admiringthe grace of her deft and sudden movements, and the sway of her willowyfigure. Every few moments she turned and faced the lake, her head thrownback, the wind whipping her garments about her. 

As she drew nearer, Orde tried in vain to catch sight of her face. Shelooked down, watching the waters advance and recede; she wore a brimmedhat bent around her head by means of some sort of veil tied over thetop and beneath her chin. When she had arrived nearly opposite Orde sheturned abruptly inland, and a moment later began laboriously to climbthe steep sand. 

The process seemed to amuse her. She turned her head sidewise to watchwith interest the hurrying, tumbling little cascades that slid from herevery step. From time to time she would raise her skirts daintily withthe tips of her fingers, and lean far over in order to observe withinterest how her feet sank to the ankles, and how the sand rushed fromeither side to fill in the depressions. The wind carried up to Orde low, joyous chuckles of delight, like those of a happy child. 

As though directed by some unseen guide, her course veered more and moreuntil it led directly to the spot where Orde stood. When she was withinten feet of him she at last raised her head so the young man could seesomething besides the top of her hat. Orde looked plump into her eyes. 

"Hullo!" she said cheerfully and unsurprised, and sank down cross-leggedat his feet. 

Orde stood quite motionless, overcome by astonishment. Her face, itslong oval framed in the bands of the gray veil and the down-turned brimof the hat, looked up smiling into his. The fresh air had deepened thecolour beneath her skin and had blown loose stray locks of the fineshadow-filled hair. Her red lips, with the quaintly up-turned corners, smiled at him with a new frankness, and the black eyes--the eyes soblack as to resemble spots--had lost their half-indolent reserve andbrimmed over quite frankly with the joy of life. She scooped up ahandful of the dry, clean sand from either side of her, raised it aloft, and let it trickle slowly between her fingers. The wind snatched at thesand and sprayed it away in a beautiful plume. 

"Isn't this REAL fun?" she asked him. 

"Why, Miss Bishop!" cried Orde, finding his voice. "What are you doinghere?"

A faint shade of annoyance crossed her brow. 

"Oh, I could ask the same of you; and then we'd talk about how surprisedwe are, world without end, " said she. "The important thing is that hereis sand to play in, and there is the Lake, and here are we, and the dayis charmed, and it's good to be alive. Sit down and dig a hole! We'veall the common days to explain things in. "

Orde laughed and seated himself to face her. Without further talk, andquite gravely, they commenced to scoop out an excavation betweenthem, piling the sand over themselves and on either side as was mostconvenient. As the hole grew deeper they had to lean over more and more. Their heads sometimes brushed ever so lightly, their hands perforcetouched. Always the dry sand flowed from the edges partially to fill inthe result their efforts. Faster and faster they scooped it out again. The excavation thus took on the shape of a funnel. Her cheeks glowedpink, her eyes shone like stars. Entirely was she absorbed in the task. At last a tiny commotion manifested itself in the bottom of the funnel. Impulsively she laid her hand on Orde's, to stop them. Fascinated, they watched. After incredible though lilliputian upheavals, atlength appeared a tiny black insect, struggling against the rolling, overwhelming sands. With great care the girl scooped this newcomerout and set him on the level ground. She looked up happily at Orde, thrusting the loose hair from in front of her eyes. 

"I was convinced we ought to dig a hole, " said she gravely. "Now, let'sgo somewhere else. "

She arose to her feet, shaking the sand free from her skirts. 

"I think, through these woods, " she decided. "Can we get back to townthis way?"

Receiving Orde's assurance, she turned at once down the slope throughthe fringe of scrub spruces and junipers into the tall woods. Here theair fell still. She remarked on how warm it seemed, and began to untiefrom over her ears the narrow band of veil that held close her hat. 

"Yes, " replied Orde. "The lumber-jacks say that the woods are the poorman's overcoat. "

She paused to savour this, her head on one side, her arms upraised tothe knot. 

"Oh, I like that!" said she, continuing her task. In a moment or so theveil hung free. She removed it and the hat, and swung them both from onefinger, and threw back her head. 

"Hear all the birds!" she said. 

Softly she began to utter a cheeping noise between her lips and teeth, low and plaintive. At once the volume of bird-sounds about increased;the half-seen flashes became more frequent. A second later the twigswere alive with tiny warblers and creepers, flirting from branch tobranch, with larger, more circumspect chewinks, catbirds, and fincheshopping down from above, very silent, very grave. In the depths of thethickets the shyer hermit and olive thrushes and the oven birds revealedthemselves ghost-like, or as sea-growths lift into a half visibilitythrough translucent shadows the colour of themselves. All were veryintent, very earnest, very interested, each after his own manner, in thecomradeship of the featherhood he imagined to be uttering distressfulcries. A few, like the chickadees, quivered their wings, opened theirlittle mouths, fluttered down tiny but aggressive against the disaster. Others hopped here and there restlessly, uttering plaintive, low-tonedcheeps. The shyest contented themselves by a discreet, silent, anddistant sympathy. Three or four freebooting Jays, attracted not so muchby the supposed calls for help as by curiosity, fluttered among the topsof the trees, uttering their harsh notes. 

Finally, the girl ended her performance in a musical laugh. 

"Run away, Brighteyes, " she called. "It's all right; nobody's damaged. "

She waved her hand. As though at a signal, the host she had evokedmelted back into the shadows of the forest. Only the chickadee, impudentas ever, retreated scolding rather ostentatiously, and the jays, splendid in their ornate blue, screamed opinions at each other from thetops of trees. 

"How would you like to be a bird?" she inquired. 

"Hadn't thought, " replied Orde. 

"Don't you ever indulge in vain and idle speculations?" she inquired. "Never mind, don't answer. It's too much to expect of a man. "

She set herself in idle motion down the slope, swinging the hat at theend of its veil, pausing to look or listen, humming a little melodybetween her closed lips, throwing her head back to breathe deep the warmair, revelling in the woods sounds and woods odours and woods life withentire self-abandonment. Orde followed her in silence. She seemed tobe quite without responsibility in regard to him; and yet an occasionalrandom remark thrown in his direction proved that he was not forgotten. Finally they emerged from the beach woods. 

They faced an open rolling country. As far as the eye could reach werethe old stumps of pine trees. Sometimes they stood in place, burned andscarred, but attesting mutely the abiding place of a spirit long sincepassed away. Sometimes they had been uprooted and dragged to mark theboundaries of fields, where they raised an abatis of twisted roots tothe sky. 

The girl stopped short as she came face to face with this open country. The inner uplift, that had lent to her aspect the wide-eyed, carelessjoy of a child, faded. In its place came a new and serious gravity. Sheturned on him troubled eyes. 

"You do this, " she accused him quite simply. 

For answer he motioned to the left where below them lay a wide andcultivated countryside--farmhouses surrounded by elms; compact wood lotsof hardwood; crops and orchards, all fair and pleasant across the bosomof a fertile nature. 

"And this, " said he. "That valley was once nothing but a pineforest--and so was all the southern part of the State, the peach beltand the farms. And for that matter Indiana, too, and all the otherforest States right out to the prairies. Where would we be now, if weHADN'T done that?" he pointed across at the stump-covered hills. 

Mischief had driven out the gravity from the girl's eyes. She hadlowered her head slightly sidewise as though to conceal their expressionfrom him. 

"I was beginning to be afraid you'd say 'yes-indeed, '" said she. 

Orde looked bewildered, then remembered the Incubus, and laughed. 

"I haven't been very conversational, " he acknowledged. 

"Certainly NOT!" she said severely. "That would have been verydisappointing. There has been nothing to say. " She turned and waved herhat at the beech woods falling sombre against the lowering sun. 

"Good-bye, " she said gravely, "and pleasant dreams to you. I hope thosevery saucy little birds won't keep you awake. " She looked up at Orde. "He was rather nice to us this afternoon, " she explained, "and it'salways well to be polite to them anyway. " She gazed steadily at Orde forsigns of amusement. He resolutely held his face sympathetic. 

"Now I think we'll go home, " said she. 

They made their way between the stumps to the edge of the sand-hilloverlooking the village. With one accord they stopped. The low-slantingsun cast across the vista a sleepy light of evening. 

"How would you like to live in a place like that all your life?" askedOrde. 

"I don't know. " She weighed her words carefully. "It would depend. Theplace isn't of so much importance, it seems to me. It's the life one iscalled to. It's whether one finds her soul's realm or not that a placeis liveable or not. I can imagine entering my kingdom at a railwaywater-tank, " she said quaintly, "or missing it entirely in a big city. "

Orde looked out over the raw little village with a new interest. 

"Of course I can see how a man's work can lie in a small place, " saidhe; "but a woman is different. "

"Why is a woman different?" she challenged. "What is her 'work, ' as youcall it; and why shouldn't it, as well as a man's, lie in a small place?What is work--outside of drudgery--unless it is correspondence of one'sabilities to one's task?"

"But the compensations--" began Orde vaguely. 

"Compensations?" she cried. "What do you mean? Here are the woods andfields, the river, the lake, the birds, and the breezes. We'll checkthem off against the theatre and balls. Books can be had here as wellas anywhere. As to people: in a large city you meet a great many, and they're all busy, and unless you make an especial and particulareffort--which you're not likely to--you'll see them only casually andonce in a great while. In a small place you know fewer people; but youknow them intimately. " She broke off with a half-laugh. "I'm from NewYork, " she stated humorously, "and you've magicked me into an eloquentdefense of Podunk!" She laughed up at Orde quite frankly. "GiantStrides!" she challenged suddenly. She turned off the edge of thesand-hill, and began to plunge down its slope, leaning far back, herarms extended, increasing as much as possible the length of each step. Orde followed at full speed. When the bottom was reached, he steadiedher to a halt. She shook herself, straightened her hat, and wound theveil around it. Her whole aspect seemed to have changed with the descentinto the conventionality of the village street. The old, gentle thoughcapable and self-contained reserve had returned. She moved beside Ordewith dignity. 

"I came down with Jane and Mrs. Hubbard to see Mr. Hubbard off on theboat for Milwaukee last night, " she told him. "Of course we had to waitover Sunday. Mrs. Hubbard and Jane had to see some relative or other;but I preferred to take a walk. "

"Where are you staying?" asked Orde. 

"At the Bennetts'. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, " replied Orde. 

They said little more until the Bennetts' gate was reached. Ordedeclined to come in. 

"Good-night, " she said. "I want to thank you. You did not once act asthough you thought I was silly or crazy. And you didn't try, as all therest of them would, to act silly too. You couldn't have done it; andyou didn't try. Oh, you may have felt it--I know!" She smiled one of herquaint and quizzical smiles. "But men aren't built for foolishness. Theyhave to leave that to us. You've been very nice this afternoon; and it'shelped a lot. I'm good for quite a long stretch now. Good-night. "

She nodded to him and left him tongue-tied by the gate. 

Orde, however, walked back to the hotel in a black rage with himselfover what he termed his imbecility. As he remembered it, he had madejust one consecutive speech that afternoon. 

"Joe, " said he to Newmark, at the hotel office, "what's the plural formof Incubus? I dimly remember it isn't 'busses. '"

"Incubi, " answered Newmark. 

"Thanks, " said Orde gloomily. 

XIII

"I have Heinzman's contract all drawn, " said Newmark the next morning, "and I think I'll go around with you to the office. "

At the appointed time they found the little German awaiting them, arotund smile of false good-nature illuminating his rosy face. Ordeintroduced his partner. Newmark immediately took charge of theinterview. 

"I have executed here the contract, and the bonds secured by Mr. Orde'sand my shares of stock in the new company, " he explained. "It isonly necessary that you affix your signature and summon the requiredwitnesses. "

Heinzman reached his hands for the papers, beaming over his glasses atthe two young men. 

As he read, however, his smile vanished, and he looked up sharply. 

"Vat is this?" he inquired, a new crispness in his voice. "You tolt me, "he accused Orde, "dot you were not brepared to break out the rollways. You tolt me you would egspect me to do that for myself. "

"Certainly, " agreed Orde. 

"Vell, why do you put in this?" demanded Heinzman, reading from thepaper in his hand. "'In case said rollways belonging to said partiesof the second part are not broken out by the time the drive has reachedthem, and in case on demand said parties of the second part do refuseor do not exercise due diligence in breaking out said rollways, the saidparties of the first part shall themselves break out said rollways, andthe said parties of the second part do hereby agree to reimburse saidparties of the first part at the rate of a dollar per thousand boardfeet. '"

"That is merely to protect ourselves, " struck in Newmark. 

"But, " exploded Heinzman, his face purpling, "a dollar a tousand isabsurd!"

"Of course it is, " agreed Newmark. "We expect it to be. But also weexpect you to break out your own rollways in time. It is intended as apenalty in case you don't. "

"I vill not stand for such foolishness, " pounded Heinzman on the arm ofhis chair. 

"Very well, " said Newmark crisply, reaching for the contract. 

But Heinzman clung to it. 

"It is absurd, " he repeated in a milder tone. "See, I vill strike itout. " He did so with a few dashes of the pen. 

"We have no intention, " stated Newmark with decision, "of giving you thechance to hang up our drive. "

Heinzman caught his breath like a child about to cry out. 

"So that is what you think!" he shouted at them. "That's the sort ofmen you think we are! I'll show you you cannot come into honest men'soffices to insoolt them by such insinuations!" He tore the contract inpieces and threw it in the waste basket. "Get oudt of here!" he cried. 

Newmark arose as dry and precise as ever. Orde was going red and whiteby turns, and his hands twitched. 

"Then I understand you to refuse our offer?" asked Newmark coolly. 

"Refuse! Yes! You and your whole kapoodle!" yelled Heinzman. 

He hopped down and followed them to the grill door, repeating over andover that he had been insulted. The clerks stared in amazement. 

Once at the foot of the dark stairs and in the open street, Orde lookedup at the sky with a deep breath of relief. 

"Whew!" said he, "that was a terror! We've gone off the wrong foot thattime. "

Newmark looked at him with some amusement. 

"You don't mean to say that fooled you!" he marvelled. 

"What?" asked Orde. 

"All that talk about insults, and the rest of the rubbish. He saw wehad spotted his little scheme; and he had to retreat somehow. It was asplain as the nose on your face. "

"You think so?" doubted Orde. 

"I know so. If he was mad at all, it was only at being found out. "

"Maybe, " said Orde. 

"We've got an enemy on our hands in any case, " concluded Newmark, "andone we'll have to look out for, I don't know how he'll do it; but he'lltry to make trouble on the river. Perhaps he'll try to block the streamby not breaking his rollways. "

"One of the first things we'll do will be to boom through a channelwhere Mr. Man's rollways will be, " said Orde. 

A faint gleam of approval lit Newmark's eyes. 

"I guess you'll be equal to the occasion, " said he drily. 

Before the afternoon train, there remained four hours. The partners atonce hunted out the little one-story frame building near the river inwhich Johnson conducted his business. 

Johnson received them with an evident reserve of suspicion. 

"I see no use in it, " said he, passing his hand over his hair "slicked"down in the lumber-jack fashion. "I can run me own widout help from anyman. "

"Which seems to settle that!" said Newmark to Orde after they had left. 

"Oh, well, his drive is small; and he's behind us, " Orde pointed out. 

"True, " said Newmark thoughtfully. 

"Now, " said Newmark, as they trudged back to their hotel to getlunch and their hand-bags. "I'll get to work at my part of it. Thisproposition of Heinzman's has given me an idea. I'm not going to try tosell this stock outside, but to the men who own timber along the river. Then they won't be objecting to the tolls; for if the company makes anyprofits, part will go to them. "

"Good idea!" cried Orde. 

"I'll take these contracts, to show we can do the business. "

"All correct. "

"And I'll see about incorporation. Also I'll look about and get a properoffice and equipments, and get hold of a book-keeper. Of course we'llhave to make this our headquarters. "

"I suppose so, " said Orde a little blankly. After an instant he laughed. "Do you know, I hadn't thought of that? We'll have to live here, won'twe?"

"Also, " went on Newmark calmly, "I'll buy the supplies to the bestadvantage I can, and see that they get here in good shape. I have ourpreliminary lists, and as fast as you think you need anything, send arequisition in to me, and I'll see to it. "

"And I?" inquired Orde. 

"You'll get right at the construction. Get the booms built and improvethe river where it needs it. Begin to get your crew--I'm not going totell you how; you know better than I do. Only get everything in shapefor next spring's drive. You can start right off. We have my money tobegin on. "

Orde laughed and stretched his arms over his head. 

"My! She's a nice big job, isn't she?" he cried joyously. 

XIV

Orde, in spite of his activities, managed to see Carroll Bishop twiceduring the ensuing week. 

On his return home late Monday afternoon, Grandma Orde informed himwith a shrewd twinkle that she wanted him surely at home the followingevening. 

"I've asked in three or four of the young people for a candy pull, " saidshe. 

"Who, mother?" asked Orde. 

"Your crowd. The Smiths, Collinses, Jane Hubbard, and Her, " said GrandmaOrde, which probably went to show that she had in the meantime beenmaking inquiries, and was satisfied with them. 

"Do you suppose they'll care for candy pulling?" hazarded Orde a littledoubtfully. 

"You mean, will she?" countered Grandma. "Well, I hope for both yoursakes she is not beyond a little old-fashioned fun. "

So it proved. The young people straggled in at an early hour aftersupper--every one had supper in those days. Carroll Bishop and Janearrived nearly the last. Orde stepped into the hall to help them withtheir wraps. He was surprised as he approached Miss Bishop to lift hercloak from her shoulders, to find that the top of her daintily poisedhead, with its soft, fine hair, came well below the level of his eyes. Somehow her poise, her slender grace of movement and of attitude, hadlent her the impression of a stature she did not possess. To-night hereyes, while fathomless as ever, shone quietly in anticipation. 

"Do you know, " she told Orde delightedly, "I have never been to a realcandy pull in my life. It was so good of your mother to ask me. What adear she looks to-night. And is that your father? I'm going to speak tohim. "

She turned through the narrow door into the lighted, low-ceilingedparlour where the company were chatting busily. Orde mechanicallyfollowed her. He was arrested by the sound of Jane Hubbard's slowgood-humoured voice behind him. 

"Now, Jack, " she drawled, "I agree with you perfectly; but that is NOreason why I should be neglected entirely. Come and hang up my coat. "

Full of remorse, Orde turned. Jane Hubbard stood accusingly in themiddle of the hall, her plain, shrewd, good-humoured face smilingfaintly. Orde met her frank wide eyes with some embarrassment. 

"Here it is, " said Jane, holding out the coat. "I don't much carewhether you hang it up or not. I just wanted to call you back to wishyou luck. " Her slow smile widened, and her gray eyes met his still moreknowingly. 

Orde seized the coat and her hand at the same time. 

"Jane, you're a trump, " said he. "No wonder you're the most popular girlin town. "

"Of course I am, Jack, " she agreed indolently. She entered the parlour. 

The candy pulling was a success. Of course everybody got burned alittle and spattered a good deal; but that was to be expected. Afterthe product had been broken and been piled on dishes, all trooped to theinformal "back sitting-room, " where an open fire invited to stories andgames of the quieter sort. Some of the girls sat in chairs, though mostjoined the men on the hearth. 

Carroll Bishop, however, seemed possessed of a spirit of restlessness. The place seemed to interest her. She wandered here and there in theroom, looking now at the walnut-framed photograph of Uncle Jim Orde, now at the great pink conch shells either side the door, now at themarble-topped table with its square paper-weight of polished agate andits glass "bell, " beneath which stood a very life-like robin. This "backsitting-room" contained little in the way of ornament. It was filled, onthe contrary, with old comfortable chairs, and worn calf-backed books. The girl peered at the titles of these; but the gas-jets had been turnedlow in favour of the firelight, and she had to give over the effortto identify the volumes. Once she wandered close to Grandma Orde'scushioned wooden rocker, and passed her hand lightly over the old lady'sshoulder. 

"Do you mind if I look at things?" she asked. "It's so dear and sweetand old and different from our New York homes. "

"Look all you want to, dearie, " said Grandma Orde. 

After a moment she passed into the dining-room. Here Orde found her, herhands linked in front of her. 

"Oh, it is so quaint and delightful, " she exhaled slowly. "This dear, dear old house with its low ceilings and its queer haphazard lines, andits deep windows, and its old pictures, and queer unexpected things thattake your breath away. "

"It is one of the oldest houses in town, " said Orde, "and I suppose itis picturesque. But, you see, I was brought up here, so I'm used to it. "

"Wait until you leave it, " said she prophetically, "and live away fromit. Then all these things will come back to you to make your heart achefor them. "

They rambled about together, Orde's enthusiasm gradually kindling at theflame of her own. He showed her the marvellous and painstaking pencilsketch of Napoleon looking out over a maltese-cross sunset done by AuntMartha at the age of ten. It hung framed in the upper hall. 

"It has always been there, ever since I can remember, " said Orde, "andit has seemed to belong there. I've never thought of it as good or bad, just as belonging. "

"I know, " she nodded. 

In this spirit also they viewed the plaster statue of Washington in thelower hall, and the Roger's group in the parlour. The glass cabinet of"curiosities" interested her greatly--the carved ivory chessmen, thedried sea-weeds, the stone from Sugar Loaf Rock, the bit from the wreckof the NORTH STAR, the gold and silver shells, the glittering geodes andpyrites, the sandal-wood fan, and all the hundred and one knick-knacksit was then the custom to collect under glass. They even venturedpart way up the creaky attic stairs, but it was too dark to enter thatmysterious region. 

"I hear the drip of water, " she whispered, her finger on her lips. 

"It's the tank, " said Orde. 

"And has it a Dark Place behind it?" she begged. 

"That's just what it has, " said he. 

"And--tell me--are there real hair trunks with brass knobs on 'em?"

"Yes, mother has two or three. "

"O-o-h!" she breathed softly. "Don't tell me what's in them. I want tobelieve in brocades and sashes. Do you know, " she looked at him soberly, "I never had any dark places behind the tank, nor mysterious trunks, when I was a child. "

"You might begin now, " suggested Orde. 

"Do you mean to insinuate I haven't grown up?" she mocked. "Thank you!Look OUT!" she cried suddenly, "the Boojum will catch us, " and pickingup her skirts she fairly flew down the narrow stairs. Orde could hearthe light swish of her draperies down the hall, and then the pat of herfeet on the stair carpet of the lower flight. 

He followed rather dreamily. A glance into the sitting-room showed thegroup gathered close around the fire listening to Lem Collin's attemptat a ghost story. She was not there. He found her, then, in the parlour. She was kneeling on the floor before the glass cabinet of curiosities, and she had quite flattened her little nose against the pane. At hisexclamation she looked up with a laugh. 

"This is the proper altitude from which to view a cabinet ofcuriosities, " said she, "and something tells me you ought to flattenyour nose, too. " She held out both hands to be helped up. "Oh, WHAT ahouse for a child!" she cried. 

After the company had gone, Orde stood long by the front gate looking upinto the infinite spaces. Somehow, and vaguely, he felt the night to beakin to her elusive spirit. Farther and farther his soul penetratedinto its depths; and yet other depths lay beyond, other mysteries, otherunguessed realms. And yet its beauty was the simplicity of space anddark and the stars. 

The next time he saw her was at her own house--or rather the house ofthe friend she visited. Orde went to call on Friday evening and waslucky enough to find the girls home and alone. After a decent intervalJane made an excuse and went out. They talked on a great variety ofsubjects, and with a considerable approach toward intimacy. Not untilnearly time to go did Orde stumble upon the vital point of the evening. He had said something about a plan for the week following. 

"But you forget that by that time I shall be gone, " said she. 

"Gone!" he echoed blankly. "Where?"

"Home, " said she. "Don't you remember I am to go Sunday morning?"

"I thought you were going to stay a month. "

"I was, but I--certain things came up that made it necessary for me toleave sooner. "

"I--I'm sorry you're going, " stammered Orde. 

"So am I, " said she. "I've had a very nice time here. "

"Then I won't see you again, " said Orde, still groping for realisation. "I must go to Monrovia to-morrow. But I'll be down to see you off. "

"Do come, " said she. 

"It's not to be for good?" he expostulated. "You'll be coming back. "

She threw her hands palm out, with a pretty gesture of ignorance. 

"That is in the lap of the gods, " said she. 

"Will you write me occasionally?" he begged. 

"As to that--" she began--"I'm a very poor correspondent. "

"But won't you write?" he insisted. 

"I do not make it a custom to write to young men. "

"Oh!" he cried, believing himself enlightened. "Will you answer if Iwrite you?"

"That depends. "

"On what?"

"On whether there is a reply to make. "

"But may I write you?"

"I suppose I couldn't very well prevent you, if you were sure to put ona three-cent stamp. "

"Do you want me to?" persisted Orde. 

She began gently to laugh, quite to herself, as though enjoying a jokeentirely within her own personal privilege. 

"You are so direct and persistent and boy-like, " said she presently. "Now if you'll be very good, and not whisper to the other little pupils, I'll tell you how they do such things usually. " She sat up straight fromthe depths of her chair, her white, delicately tapering forearms restinglightly on her knees. "Young men desiring to communicate with youngladies do not ask them bluntly. They make some excuse, like sendinga book, a magazine, a marked newspaper, or even a bit of desiredinformation. At the same time, they send notes informing the girl of thefact. The girl is naturally expected to acknowledge the politeness. Ifshe wishes the correspondence to continue, she asks a question, or insome other way leaves an opening. Do you see?"

"Yes, I see, " said Orde, slightly crestfallen. "But that's a long timeto wait. I like to feel settled about a thing. I wanted to know. "

She dropped back against the cushioned slant of her easy chair, andlaughed again. 

"And so you just up and asked!" she teased. 

"I beg your pardon if I was rude, " he said humbly. 

The laughter died slowly from her eyes. 

"Don't, " she said. "It would be asking pardon for being yourself. Youwanted to know: so you asked. And I'm going to answer. I shall be veryglad to correspond with you and tell you about my sort of things, ifyou happen to be interested in them. I warn you: they are not veryexciting. "

"They are yours, " said he. 

She half rose to bow in mock graciousness, caught herself, and sankback. 

"No, I won't, " she said, more than half to herself. She sat broodingfor a moment; then suddenly her mood changed. She sprang up, shook herskirts free, and seated herself at the piano. To Orde, who had alsoarisen, she made a quaint grimace over her shoulder. 

"Admire your handiwork!" she told him. "You are rapidly bringing meto 'tell the truth and shame the devil. ' Oh, he must be dying ofmortification this evening!" She struck a great crashing chord, holdingthe keys while the strings reverberated and echoed down slowly intosilence again. "It isn't fair, " she went on, "for you big simple mento disarm us. I don't care! I have my private opinion of such brutestrength. JE ME MOQUE!"

She wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes. Then ruthlessly she drownedhis reply in a torrent of music. Like mad she played, rocking herslender body back and forth along the key-board; holding rigid herfingers, her hands, and the muscles of her arms. The bass notes roaredlike the rumbling of thunder; the treble flashed like the dart oflightnings. Abruptly she muted the instrument. Silence fell as somethingthat had been pent and suddenly released. She arose from the piano stoolquite naturally, both hands at her hair. 

"Aren't Mr. And Mrs. Hubbard dear old people?" said she. 

"What is your address in New York?" demanded Orde. She sank into a chairnearby with a pretty uplifted gesture of despair. 

"I surrender!" she cried, and then she laughed until the tears startedfrom her eyes and she had to brush them away with what seemed to Orde anabsurd affair to call a handkerchief. "Oh, you are delicious!" she saidat last. "Well, listen. I live at 12 West Ninth Street. Can you rememberthat?" Orde nodded. "And now any other questions the prisoner can replyto without incriminating herself, she is willing to answer. " She foldedher hands demurely in her lap. 

Two days later Orde saw the train carry her away. He watched the rearcar disappear between the downward slopes of two hills, and then finallythe last smoke from the locomotive dissipate in the clear blue. 

Declining Jane's kindly meant offer of a lift, he walked back to town. 

XV

The new firm plunged busily into its more pressing activities. Ordeespecially had an infinitude of details on his hands. The fat note-bookin his side pocket filled rapidly with rough sketches, lists, andestimates. Constantly he interviewed men of all kinds--rivermen, millmen, contractors, boat builders, hardware dealers, pile-driver captains, builders, wholesale grocery men, cooks, axe-men, chore boys--all alittle world in itself. 

The signs of progress soon manifested themselves. Below Big Bend thepile-drivers were at work, the square masses of their hammers risingrapidly to the tops of the derricks, there to pause a moment beforedropping swiftly to a dull THUMP! They were placing a long, compact row, which should be the outer bulwarks separating the sorting-booms fromthe channel of the river. Ashore the carpenters were knocking togethera long, low structure for the cook-house and a larger building, destinedto serve as bunk-house for the regular boom-crew. There would also be ablacksmith's forge, a storehouse, a tool and supply-house, a barn, andsmall separate shanties for the married men. Below more labourers withpicks, shovels, axes, and scrapers were cutting out and levelling a roadwhich would, when finished, meet the county road to town. The numerousbayous of great marsh were crossed by "float-bridges, " lying flat on thesurface of the water, which spurted up in rhythmical little jets underthe impact of hoofs. Down stream eight miles, below the mills, and justbeyond where the drawbridge crossed over to Monrovia, Duncan McLeod'sshipyards clipped and sawed, and steamed and bent and bolted away at twotugboats, the machinery for which was already being stowed in the holdof a vessel lying at wharf in Chicago. In the storerooms of hardwarefirms porters carried and clerks checked off chains, strap iron, bolts, spikes, staples, band iron, bar iron, peavies, cant-hooks, pike-poles, sledge-hammers, blocks, ropes, and cables. 

These things took time and attention to details; also a carefulsupervision. The spring increased, burst into leaf and bloom, andsettled into summer. Orde was constantly on the move. As soon aslow water came with midsummer, however, he arranged matters to runthemselves as far as possible, left with Newmark minute instructions asto personal supervision, and himself departed to Redding. Here he joineda crew which Tom North had already collected, and betook himself to thehead of the river. 

He knew exactly what he intended to do. Far back on the head-waters hebuilt a dam. The construction of it was crude, consisting merely of logcribs filled with stone and debris placed at intervals across the bedof the stream, against which slanted logs made a face. The gate operatedsimply, and could be raised to let loose an entire flood. And indeedthis was the whole purpose of the dam. It created a reservoir from whichcould be freed new supplies of water to eke out the dropping springfreshets. 

Having accomplished this formidable labour--for the trees had to be cutand hauled, the stone carted, and the earth shovelled--the crew nextmoved down a good ten miles to where the river dropped over a rapidsrough and full of boulders. Here were built and placed a row ofstone-filled log cribs in a double row down stream to define the channeland to hold the drive in it and away from the shallows near either bank. The profile of these cribs was that of a right-angled triangle, theslanting side up stream. Booms chained between them helped deflect thedrive from the shoals. Their more important office, however, was to givefooting to the drivers. 

For twenty-five miles then nothing of importance was undertaken. Twoor three particularly bad boulders were split out by the explosionof powder charges; a number of snags and old trees were cut away anddisposed of; the channel was carefully examined for obstructions of anykind whatever. Then the party came to the falls. 

Here Orde purposed his most elaborate bit of rough engineering. Thefalls were only about fifteen feet high, but they fell straight down toa bed of sheer rock. This had been eaten by the eddies into pot-holesand crannies until a jagged irregular scoop-hollow had formedimmediately underneath the fall. Naturally this implied a ledge below. 

In flood time the water boiled and roared through this obstruction ina torrent. The saw logs, caught in the rush, plunged end on into thescoop-hollow, hit with a crash, and were spewed out below more or lessbattered, barked, and stripped. Sometimes, however, when the chance ofthe drive brought down a hundred logs together, they failed to shootover the barrier of the ledge. Then followed a jam, a bad jam, difficultand dangerous to break. The falls had taken her usurious share of thelives the river annually demands as her toll. 

This condition of affairs Orde had determined, if possible, to obviate. From the thirty-five or forty miles of river that lay above, and fromits tributaries would come the bulk of the white and Norway pine foryears to follow. At least two thirds of each drive Orde figured wouldcome from above the fall. 

"If, " said he to North, "we could carry an apron on a slant from justunder the crest and over the pot-holes, it would shoot both the waterand the logs off a better angle. "

"Sure, " agreed North, "but you'll have fun placing your apron with allthat water running through. Why, it would drown us!"

"I've got a notion on that, " said Orde. "First thing is to get thematerial together. "

A hardwood forest topped the slope. Into this went the axe-men. Thestraightest trees they felled, trimmed, and dragged, down travoy trailsthey constructed, on sleds they built for the purpose, to the banks ofthe river. Here they bored the two holes through either end to receivethe bolts when later they should be locked together side by side intheir places. As fast as they were prepared, men with cant-hooks rolledthem down the slope to a flat below the falls. They did these thingsswiftly and well, because they were part of the practised day's work, but they shook their heads at the falls. 

After the trees had been cut in sufficient number--there wereseventy-five of them, each twenty-six feet long--Orde led the way backup stream a half mile to a shallows, where he commanded the constructionof a number of exaggerated sawhorses with very widespread slanting legs. In the meantime the cook-wagon and the bed-wagon had evidently beenmaking many trips to Sand Creek, fifteen miles away, as was attested bya large pile of heavy planks. When the sawhorses were completed, Ordedirected the picks and shovels to be brought up. 

At this point the river, as has been hinted, widened over shoals. Thebanks at either hand, too, were flat and comparatively low. As is oftenthe case in bends of rivers subject to annual floods, the banks slopedback for some distance into a lower black-ash swamp territory. 

Orde set his men to digging a channel through this bank. It was noslight job, from one point of view, as the slope down into the swampbegan only at a point forty or fifty feet inland; but on the other handthe earth was soft and free from rocks. When completed the channel gavepassage to a rather feeble streamlet from the outer fringe of the river. The men were puzzled, but Orde, by the strange freak of his otherwisefrank and open nature, as usual told nothing of his plans, even to TomNorth. 

"He can't expect to turn that river, " said Tim Nolan, who was once morewith the crew. "He'd have to dig a long ways below that level to catchthe main current--and then some. "

"Let him alone, " advised North, puffing at his short pipe. "He's wiserthan a tree full of owls. "

Next Orde assigned two men to each of the queer-shaped sawhorses, andinstructed them to place the horses in a row across the shallowestpart of the river, and broadside to the stream. This was done. The men, half-way to their knees in the swift water, bore down heavily to keeptheir charges in place. Other men immediately began to lay the heavyplanks side by side, perpendicular to and on the up-stream side of thehorses. The weight of the water clamped them in place; big rocks andgravel shovelled on in quantity prevented the lower ends from rising;the wide slant of the legs directed the pressure so far downward thatthe horses were prevented from floating away. And slowly the bulk ofthe water, thus raised a good three feet above its former level, turnedaside into the new channel and poured out to inundate the black-ashswamp beyond. 

A good volume still poured over the top of the temporary dam and down tothe fall; but it was by this expedient so far reduced that work becamepossible. 

"Now, boys!" cried Orde. "Lively, while we've got the chance!"

By means of blocks and tackles and the team horses the twenty-six-footlogs were placed side by side, slanting from a point two feet below therim of the fall to the ledge below. They were bolted together topand bottom through the four holes bored for that purpose. This was aconfusing and wet business. Sufficient water still flowed in the naturalchannel of the river to dash in spray over the entire work. Men toiled, wet to the skin, their garments clinging to them, their eyes full ofwater, barely able to breathe, yet groping doggedly at it, and arrivingat last. The weather was warm with the midsummer. They made a joke ofthe difficulty, and found inexhaustible humour in the fact that one oftheir number was an Immersion Baptist. When the task was finished, theypried the flash-boards from the improvised dam; piled them neatly beyondreach of high water; rescued the sawhorses and piled them also fora possible future use; blocked the temporary channel with a tree orso--and earth. The river, restored to its immemorial channel by thesemen who had so nonchalantly turned it aside, roared on, singing againthe song it had until now sung uninterruptedly for centuries. Orde andhis crew tramped back to the falls, and gazed on their handiwork withsatisfaction. Instead of plunging over an edge into a turmoil of foamand eddies, now the water flowed smoothly, almost without a break, overan incline of thirty degrees. 

"Logs'll slip over that slick as a gun barrel, " said Tom North. "Howlong do you think she'll last?"

"Haven't an idea, " replied Orde. "We may have to do it again nextsummer, but I don't think it. There's nothing but the smooth of thewater to wear those logs until they begin to rot. "

Quite cheerfully they took up their long, painstaking journey back downthe river. 

Travel down the river was at times very pleasant, and at times verydisagreeable. The ground had now hardened so that a wanigan boat wasunnecessary. Instead, the camp outfit was transported in waggons, whichoften had to journey far inland, to make extraordinary detours, butwhich always arrived somehow at the various camping places. Orde and hismen, of course, took the river trail. 

The river trail ran almost unbroken for over a hundred miles ofmeandering way. It climbed up the high banks at the points, it crossedthe bluffs along their sheer edges, it descended to the thickets inthe flats, it crossed the swamps on pole-trails, it skirted the great, solemn woods. Sometimes, in the lower reaches, its continuity was brokenby a town, but always after it recovered from its confusion it led onwith purpose unvarying. Never did it desert for long the river. Thecool, green still reaches, or the tumbling of the white-water, werealways within its sight, sometimes beneath its very tread. Whenoccasionally it cut in across a very long bend, it always sent fromitself a little tributary trail which traced all the curves, andreturned at last to its parent, undoubtedly with a full report of itstask. And the trail was beaten hard by the feet of countless men, who, like Orde and his crew, had taken grave, interested charge of the riverfrom her birth to her final rest in the great expanses of the Lake. Itis there to-day, although the life that brought it into being has beengone from it these many years. 

In midsummer Orde found the river trail most unfamiliar in appearance. Hardly did he recognise it in some places. It possessed a wide, leisurely expansiveness, an indolent luxury, a lazy invitation born ofbroad green leaves, deep and mysterious shadows, the growth of ferns, docks, and the like cool in the shade of the forest, the shimmer ofaspens and poplars through the heat, the green of tangling vines, thedrone of insects, the low-voiced call of birds, the opulent splashing ofsun-gold through the woods, quite lacking to the hard, tight season inwhich his river work was usually performed. What, in the early year, had been merely a whip of brush, now had become a screen through whosewaving, shifting interstices he caught glimpses of the river flowinggreen and cool. What had been bare timber amongst whose twigs andbranches the full daylight had shone unobstructed, now had clotheditself in foliage and leaned over to make black and mysterious the waterthat flowed beneath. Countless insects hovered over the polished surfaceof that water. Dragon-flies cruised about. Little birds swooped silentlydown and fluttered back, intent on their tiny prey. Water-bugs skatedhither and thither in apparently purposeless diagonals. Once in a greatwhile the black depths were stirred. A bass rolled lazily over, carryingwith him his captured insect, leaving on the surface of the waterconcentric rings which widened and died away. 

The trail led the crew through many minor labours, all of which consumedtime. At Reed's Mill Orde entered into diplomatic negotiations with OldMan Reed, whom he found singularly amenable. The skirmish in the springseemed to have taken all the fight out of him; or perhaps, more simply, Orde's attitude toward him at that time had won him over to the youngman's side. At any rate, as soon as he understood that Orde was now inbusiness for himself, he readily came to an agreement. Thereupon Orde'screw built a new sluiceway and gate far enough down to assure a goodhead in the pond above. Other dam owners farther down the stream alsosigned agreements having to do with supplying water over and above whatthe law required of them. Above one particularly shallow rapid Ordebuilt a dam of his own. 

All this took time, and the summer months slipped away. Orde had falleninto the wild life as into a habit. He lived on the river or thetrail. His face took on a ruddier hue than ever; his clothes faded to anondescript neutral colour of their own; his hair below his narrow felthat bleached three shades. He did his work, and figured on his schemes, and smoked his pipe, and occasionally took little trips to the nearesttown, where he spent the day at the hotel desks reading and answeringhis letters. The weather was generally very warm. Thunder-storms werenot infrequent. Until the latter part of August, mosquitoes and blackflies were bad. 

About the middle of September the crew had worked down as far asRedding, leaving behind them a river tamed, groomed, and harnessed fortheir uses. Remained still the forty miles between Redding and theLake to be improved. As, however, navigation for light draught vesselsextended as far as that city, Orde here paid off his men. A few days'work with a pile driver would fence the principal shoals from thechannel. 

He stayed over night with his parents, and at once took the train forMonrovia. There he made his way immediately to the little office the newfirm had rented. Newmark had just come down. 

"Hullo, Joe, " greeted Orde, his teeth flashing in contrast to the tan ofhis face. "I'm done. Anything new since you wrote last?"

Newmark had acquired his articles of incorporation and sold his stock. How many excursions, demonstrations, representations, and arguments thatimplied, only one who has undertaken the floating of a new and untriedscheme can imagine. Perhaps his task had in it as much of difficulty asOrde's taming of the river. Certainly he carried it to as successful aconclusion. The bulk of the stock he sold to the log-owners themselves;the rest he scattered here and there and everywhere in small lots, ashe was able. Some five hundred and thousand dollar blocks even went toChicago. His own little fortune of twenty thousand he paid in for theshares that represented his half of the majority retained by himself andOrde. The latter gave a note at ten per cent for his proportion of thestock. Newmark then borrowed fifteen thousand more, giving as securitya mortgage on the company's newly acquired property--the tugs, booms, buildings, and real estate. Thus was the financing determined. Itleft the company with obligations of fifteen hundred dollars a year ininterest, expenses which would run heavily into the thousands, and anobligation to make good outside stock worth at par exactly forty-ninethousand dollars. In addition, Orde had charged against his account aburden of two thousand dollars a year interest on his personal debt. Tooffset these liabilities--outside the river improvements and equipments, which would hold little or no value in case of failure--the firm heldcontracts to deliver about one hundred million feet of logs. After somediscussion the partners decided to allow themselves twenty-five hundreddollars apiece by way of salary. 

"If we don't make any dividends at first, " Orde pointed out, "I've gotto keep even on my interest. "

"You can't live on five hundred, " objected Newmark. 

"I'll be on the river and at the booms six months of the year, " repliedOrde, "and I can't spend much there. "

"I'm satisfied, " said Newmark thoughtfully, "I'm getting a little betterthan good interest on my own investment from the start. And in a fewyears after we've paid up, there'll be mighty big money in it. "

He removed his glasses and tapped his palm with their edge. 

"The only point that is at all risky to me, " said he, "is that we haveonly one-season contracts. If for any reason we hang up the drive, orfail to deliver promptly, we're going to get left the year following. And then it's B-U-S-T, bust. "

"Well, we'll just try not to hang her, " replied Orde. 

XVI

Orde's bank account, in spite of his laughing assertion to Newmark, contained some eleven hundred dollars. After a brief but comprehensivetour of inspection over all the works then forward, he drew a hundredof this and announced to Newmark that business would take him away forabout two weeks. 

"I have some private affairs to attend to before settling down tobusiness for keeps, " he told Newmark vaguely. 

At Redding, whither he went to pack his little sole-leather trunk, hetold Grandma Orde the same thing. She said nothing at the time, butlater, when Grandpa Orde's slender figure had departed, very courteous, very erect, very dignified, with its old linen duster flapping aroundit, she came and stood by the man leaning over the trunk. 

"Speak to her, Jack, " said she quietly. "She cares for you. "

Orde looked up in astonishment, but he did not pretend to deny theimplied accusation as to his destination. 

"Why, mother!" he cried. "She's only seen me three or four times! It'sabsurd--yet. "

"I know, " nodded Grandma Orde, wisely. "I know. But you mark my words;she cares for you. "

She said nothing more, but stood looking while Orde folded and laidaway, his head bent low in thought. Then she placed her hand foran instant on his shoulder and went away. The Ordes were not ademonstrative people. 

The journey to New York was at that time very long and disagreeable, butOrde bore it with his accustomed stoicism. He had visited the metropolisbefore, so it was not unfamiliar to him. He was very glad, however, toget away from the dust and monotony of the railroad train. The Septembertwilight was just falling. Through its dusk the street lamps werepopping into illumination as the lamp-lighter made his rapid way. Ordeboarded a horse-car and jingled away down Fourth Avenue. He was pleasedat having arrived, and stretched his legs and filled his lungs twicewith so evident an enjoyment that several people smiled. 

His comfort was soon disturbed, however, by an influx of people boardingthe car at Twenty-third Street. The seats were immediately filled, andlate comers found themselves obliged to stand in the aisle. Among thesewere several women. The men nearest buried themselves in the papersafter the almost universal metropolitan custom. Two or three arose tooffer their seats, among them Orde. When, however, the latter had turnedto indicate to one of the women the vacated seat, he discovered itoccupied by a chubby and flashily dressed youth of the sort commonenough in the vicinity of Fourteenth Street; impudent of eye, cynical ofdemeanour, and slightly contemptuous of everything unaccustomed. He hadslipped in back of Orde when that young man arose, whether underthe impression that Orde was about to get off the car or from sheerimpudence, it would be impossible to say. 

Orde stared at him, a little astonished. 

"I intended that seat for this lady, " said Orde, touching him on theshoulder. 

The youth looked up coolly. 

"You don't come that!" said he. 

Orde wasted no time in discussion, which no doubt saved the necessity ofa more serious disturbance. He reached over suddenly, seized theyouth by the collar, braced his knee against the seat, and heaved theinterloper so rapidly to his feet that he all but plunged forward amongthe passengers sitting opposite. 

"Your seat, madam, " said Orde. 

The woman, frightened, unwilling to become the participant of a sceneof any sort, stood looking here and there. Orde, comprehending herembarrassment, twisted his antagonist about, and, before he couldrecover his equilibrium sufficiently to offer resistance, propelled himrapidly to the open door, the passengers hastily making way for them. 

"Now, my friend, " said Orde, releasing his hold on the other's collar, "don't do such things any more. They aren't nice. "

Trivial as the incident was, it served to draw Orde to the particularnotice of an elderly man leaning against the rear rail. He was a verywell-groomed man, dressed in garments whose fit was evidently theproduct of the highest art, well buttoned up, well brushed, well caredfor in every way. In his buttonhole he wore a pink carnation, and in hisgloved hand he carried a straight, gold-headed cane. A silk hat coveredhis head, from beneath which showed a slightly empurpled countenance, with bushy white eyebrows, a white moustache, and a pair of ratherbloodshot, but kindly, blue eyes. In spite of his somewhat pudgyrotundity, he carried himself quite erect, in a manner that bespoke theretired military man. 

"You have courage, sir, " said this gentleman, inclining his bead gravelyto Orde. 

The young man laughed in his good-humoured fashion. 

"Not much courage required to root out that kind of a skunk, " said hecheerfully. 

"I refer to the courage of your convictions. The young men of thisgeneration seem to prefer to avoid public disturbances. That breed isquite capable of making a row, calling the police, raising the deuce, and all that. "

"What of it?" said Orde. 

The elderly gentleman puffed out his cheeks. 

"You are from the West, are you not?" he stated, rather than asked. 

"We call it the East out there, " said Orde. "It's Michigan. "

"I should call that pretty far west, " said the old gentleman. 

Nothing more was said. After a block or two Orde descended on his way toa small hotel just off Broadway. The old gentleman saluted. Orde noddedgood-humouredly. In his private soul he was a little amused at the oldboy. To his view a man and clothes carried to their last refinement werecontradictory terms. 

Orde ate, dressed, and set out afoot in search of Miss Bishop's address. He arrived in front of the house a little past eight o'clock, and, aftera moment's hesitation, mounted the steps and rang the bell. 

The door swung silently back to frame an impassive man-servant dressedin livery. To Orde's inquiry he stated that Miss Bishop had gone outto the theatre. The young man left his name and a message of regret. Atthis the footman, with an irony so subtle as to be quite lost on Orde, demanded a card. Orde scribbled a line in his note-book, tore it out, folded it, and left it. In it he stated his regret, his short residencein the city, and desired an early opportunity to call. Then he departeddown the brownstone steps, totally unconscious of the contempt he hadinspired in the heart of the liveried man behind him. 

He retired early and arose early, as had become his habit. When hedescended to the office the night clerk, who had not yet been relieved, handed him a note delivered the night before. Orde ripped it openeagerly. 

"MY DEAR MR. ORDE:

"I was so sorry to miss you that evening because of a stupid play. Comearound as early as you can to-morrow morning. I shall expect you. 

"Sincerely yours, "CARROLL BISHOP. "

Orde glanced at the clock, which pointed to seven. He breakfasted, readthe morning paper, finally started leisurely in the direction of WestNinth Street. He walked slowly, so as to consume more time, then atUniversity Place was seized with a panic, and hurried rapidly to hisdestination. The door was answered by the same man who had opened thenight before, but now, in some indefinable way, his calm, while flawlessexternally, seemed to have lifted to a mere surface, as though he mighthastily have assumed his coat. To Orde's inquiry he stated with greatbrevity that Miss Bishop was not yet visible, and prepared to close thedoor. 

"You are mistaken, " said Orde, with equal brevity, and stepped inside. "I have an engagement with Miss Bishop. Tell her Mr. Orde is here. "

The man departed in some doubt, leaving Orde standing in the gloomyhall. That young man, however, quite cheerfully parted the heavycurtains leading into a parlour, and sat down in a spindle-legged chair. At his entrance, a maid disappeared out another door, carrying with herthe implements of dusting and brushing. 

Orde looked around the room with some curiosity. It was long, narrow, and very high. Tall windows admitted light at one end. The illuminationwas, however, modified greatly by hangings of lace covering all thewindows, supplemented by heavy draperies drawn back to either side. Theembrasure was occupied by a small table, over which seemed to fluttera beautiful marble Psyche. A rubber plant, then as now the mark of thecity and suburban dweller, sent aloft its spare, shiny leaves alongsidea closed square piano. The lack of ornaments atop the latter bespokethe musician. Through the filtered gloom of the demi-light Orde surveyedwith interest the excellent reproductions of the Old World masterpiecesframed on the walls--"Madonnas" by Raphael, Murillo, and Perugino, the "Mona Lisa, " and Botticelli's "Spring"--the three oil portraitsoccupying the large spaces; the spindle-legged chairs and tables, thetea service in the corner, the tall bronze lamp by the piano, the neatlittle grate-hearth, with its mantel of marble; the ormolu clock, allthe decorous and decorated gentility which marked the irreproachablecorrectness of whoever had furnished the apartment. Dark and heavyhangings depended in front of a double door leading into another roombeyond. Equally dark and heavy hangings had closed behind Orde as heentered. An absolute and shrouded stillness seemed to settle down uponhim. The ormolu clock ticked steadily. Muffled sounds came at longintervals from behind the portieres. Orde began to feel oppressed andsubdued. 

For quite three quarters of an hour he waited without hearing anyother indications of life than the muffled sounds just remarked upon. Occasionally he shifted his position, but cautiously, as though hefeared to awaken some one. The three oil portraits stared at him withall the reserved aloofness of their painted eyes. He began to doubtwhether the man had announced him at all. 

Then, breaking the stillness with almost startling abruptness, he hearda clear, high voice saying something at the top of the stairs outside. A rhythmical SWISH of skirts, punctuated by the light PAT-PAT of agirl tripping downstairs, brought him to his feet. A moment later thecurtains parted and she entered, holding out her hand. 

"Oh, I did keep you waiting such a long time!" she cried. 

He stood holding her hand, suddenly unable to say a word, looking at herhungrily. A flood of emotion, of which he had had no prevision, swelledup within him to fill his throat. An almost irresistible impulse all butcontrolled him to crush her to him, to kiss her lips and her throat, tolose his fingers in the soft, shadowy fineness of her hair. The crestof the wave passed almost immediately, but it left him shaken. A faintcolour deepened under the transparence of her skin; her fathomless blackeyes widened ever so little; she released her hand. 

"It was good of you to come so promptly, " said she. "I'm so anxious tohear all about the dear people at Redding. "

She settled gracefully in one of the little chairs. Orde sat down, oncemore master of himself, but still inclined to devour her with his gaze. She was dressed in a morning gown, all laces and ribbons and long, flowing lines. Her hair was done low on the back of her head and on thenape of her neck. The blood ebbed and flowed beneath her clear skin. A faint fragrance of cleanliness diffused itself about her--the cool, sweet fragrance of daintiness. They entered busily into conversation. Her attitudes were no longer relaxed and languidly graceful as in theeasy chairs under the lamplight. She sat forward, her hands crossed onher lap, a fire smouldering deep beneath the cool surface lights of hereyes. 

The sounds in the next room increased in volume, as though severalpeople must have entered that apartment. In a moment or so the curtainsto the hall parted to frame the servant. 

"Mrs. Bishop wishes to know, miss, " said that functionary, "if you'renot coming to breakfast. "

Orde sprang to his feet. 

"Haven't you had your breakfast yet?" he cried, conscience stricken. 

"Didn't you gather the fact that I'm just up?" she mocked him. "I assureyou it doesn't matter. The family has just come down. "

"But, " cried Orde, "I wasn't here until nine o'clock. I thought, ofcourse, you'd be around. I'm mighty sorry--"

"Oh, la la!" she cried, cutting him short. "What a bother about nothing. Don't you see--I'm ahead a whole hour of good talk. "

"You see, you told me in your note to come early, " said Orde. 

"I forgot you were one of those dreadful outdoor men. You didn't see anyworms, did you? Next time I'll tell you to come the day after. "

Orde was for taking his leave, but this she would not have. 

"You must meet my family, " she negatived. "For if you're here for soshort a time we want to see something of you. Come right out now. "

Orde thereupon followed her down a narrow, dark hall, squeezed betweenthe stairs and the wall, to a door that opened slantwise into adining-room the exact counterpart in shape to the parlour at the otherside of the house. Only in this case the morning sun and more diaphanouscurtains lent an air of brightness, further enhanced by a wire stand offlowers in the bow-windows. 

The centre of the room was occupied by a round table, about whichwere grouped several people of different ages. With her back to thebow-window sat a woman well beyond middle age, but with evidently somepretensions to youth. She was tall, desiccated, quick in movement. Darkrings below her eyes attested either a nervous disease, an hystericaltemperament, or both. Immediately at her left sat a boy of aboutfourteen years of age, his face a curious contradiction between anaturally frank and open expression and a growing sullenness. Next himstood a vacant chair, evidently for Miss Bishop. Opposite lolled a youngman, holding a newspaper in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. Hewas very handsome, with a drooping black moustache, dark eyes, underlashes almost too luxuriant, and a long, oval face, dark in complexion, and a trifle sardonic in expression. In the VIS-A-VIS to Mrs. Bishop, Orde was surprised to find his ex-military friend of the streetcar. Miss Bishop performed the necessary introductions, which eachacknowledged after his fashion, but with an apparent indifference thatdashed Orde, accustomed to a more Western cordiality. Mrs. Bishop heldout a languidly graceful hand, the boy mumbled a greeting, the young mannodded lazily over his newspaper. Only General Bishop, recognising him, arose and grasped his hand, with a real, though rather fussy, warmth. 

"My dear sir, " he cried, "I am honoured to see you again. This, mydear, " he addressed his wife, "is the young man I was telling youabout--in the street car, " he explained. 

"How very interesting, " said Mrs. Bishop, with evidently nocomprehension and less interest. 

Gerald Bishop cast an ironically amused glance across at Orde. The boylooked up at him quickly, the sullenness for a moment gone from hisface. 

Carroll Bishop appeared quite unconscious of an atmosphere which seemedto Orde strained, but sank into her place at the table and unfoldedher napkin. The silent butler drew forward a chair for Orde, and stoodlooking impassively in Mrs. Bishop's direction. 

"You will have some breakfast with us?" she inquired. "No? A cup ofcoffee, at least?"

She began to manipulate the coffee pot, without paying the slightestattention to Orde's disclaimer. The general puffed out his cheeks, andcoughed a bit in embarrassment. 

"A good cup of coffee is never amiss to an old campaigner, " he said toOrde. "It's as good as a full meal in a pinch. I remember when I was amajor in the Eleventh, down near the City of Mexico, in '48, the timeHardy's command was so nearly wiped out by that viaduct--" He halfturned toward Orde, his face lighting up, his fingers reaching for thefork with which, after the custom of old soldiers, to trace the chart ofhis reminiscences. 

Mrs. Bishop rattled her cup and saucer with an uncontrollably nervousjerk of her slender body. For some moments she had awaited a chance toget the general's attention. "Spare us, father, " she said brusquely. "Will you have another cup of coffee?"

The old gentleman, arrested in mid-career, swallowed, looked a triflebewildered, but subsided meekly. 

"No, thank you, my dear, " said he, and went furiously at his breakfast. 

Orde, overwhelmed by embarrassment, discovered that none of the othershad paid the incident the slightest attention. Only on the lips ofGerald Bishop he surprised a fine, detached smile. 

At this moment the butler entered bearing the mail. Mrs. Bishop torehers open rapidly, dropping the mangled envelopes at her side. Thecontents of one seemed to vex her. 

"Oh!" she cried aloud. "That miserable Marie! She promised me to have itdone to-day, and now she puts it off until Monday. It's too provoking!"She turned to Orde for sympathy. "Do you know ANYTHING more aggravatingthan to work and slave to the limit of endurance, and then haveeverything upset by the stupidity of some one else?"

Orde murmured an appropriate reply, to which Mrs. Bishop paid noattention whatever. She started suddenly up from the table. 

"I must see about it!" she cried. "I plainly see I shall have to do itmyself. I WILL do it myself. I promised it for Sunday. "

"You mustn't do another stitch, mother, " put in Carroll Bishopdecidedly. "You know what the doctor told you. You'll have yourself downsick. "

"Well, see for yourself!" cried Mrs. Bishop. "That's what comes ofleaving things to others! If I'd done it myself, it would have saved meall this bother and fuss, and it would have been done. And now I've gotto do it anyway. "

"My dear, " put in the general, "perhaps Carroll can see Marie about it. In any case, there's nothing to work yourself up into such an excitementabout. "

"It's very easy for you to talk, isn't it?" cried Mrs. Bishop, turningon him. "I like the way you all sit around like lumps and do nothing, and then tell me how I ought to have done it. John, have the carriagearound at once. " She turned tensely to Orde. "I hope you'll excuse me, "she said very briefly; "I have something very important to attend to. "

Carroll had also risen. Orde held out his hand. 

"I must be going, " said he. 

"Well, " she conceded, "I suppose I'd better see if I can't help motherout. But you'll come in again. Come and dine with us this evening. Mother will be delighted. "

As Mrs. Bishop had departed from the room, Orde had to take for grantedthe expression of this delight. He bowed to the other occupants ofthe table. The general was eating nervously. Gerald's eyes were fixedamusedly on Orde. 

To Orde's surprise, he was almost immediately joined on the street byyoung Mr. Bishop, most correctly appointed. 

"Going anywhere in particular?" he inquired. "Let's go up the avenue, then. Everybody will be out. "

They turned up the great promenade, a tour of which was then, even morethan now, considered obligatory on the gracefully idle. Neither saidanything--Orde because he was too absorbed in the emotions thissudden revelation of Carroll's environment had aroused in him; Gerald, apparently, because he was too indifferent. Nevertheless it was theyoung exquisite who finally broke the silence. 

"It was an altar cloth, " said he suddenly. 

"What?" asked Orde, rather bewildered. 

"Mother is probably the most devout woman in New York, " went on Gerald'seven voice. "She is one of the hardest workers in the church. She keepsall the fast days, and attends all the services. Although she has nostrength to speak of, she has just completed an elaborate embroideredaltar cloth. The work she accomplished while on her knees. Often shespent five or six hours a day in that position. It was very devout, butagainst the doctor's orders, and she is at present much pulled down. Finally she gave way to persuasion to the extent of sending theembroidery out to be bound and corded. As a result, the altar cloth willnot be done for next Sunday. "

He delivered this statement in a voice absolutely colourless, withoutthe faintest trace discernible of either approval or disapproval, without the slightest irony, yet Orde felt vaguely uncomfortable. 

"It must have been annoying to her, " he said gravely, "and I hope shewill get it done in time. Perhaps Miss Bishop will be able to do it. "

"That, " said Gerald, "is Madison Square--or perhaps you know New York?My sister would, of course, be only too glad to finish the work, but Ifear that my mother's peculiarly ardent temperament will now insist onher own accomplishment of the task. But perhaps you do not understandtemperaments?"

"Very little, I'm afraid, " confessed Orde. 

They walked on for some distance farther. 

"Your father was in the Mexican War?" said Orde, to change the trend ofhis own thoughts. 

"He was a most distinguished officer. I believe he received the Medal ofHonour for a part in the affair of the Molina del Rey. "

"What command had he in the Civil War?" asked Orde. "I fooled around theoutskirts of that a little myself. "

"My father resigned from the army in '54, " replied Gerald, with hiscool, impersonal courtesy. 

"That was too bad; just before the chance for more service, " said Orde. 

"Army life was incompatible with my mother's temperament, " statedGerald. 

Orde said nothing more. It was Gerald's turn to end the pause. 

"You are from Redding, of course, " said he. "My sister is veryenthusiastic about the place. You are in business there?"

Orde replied briefly, but, forced by the direct, cold, and politecross-questioning of his companion, he gave the latter a succinct ideaof the sort of operations in which he was interested. 

"And you, " he said at last; "I suppose you're either a broker or lawyer;most men are down here. "

"I am neither one nor the other, " stated Gerald. "I am possessed of asufficient income from a legacy to make business unnecessary. "

"I don't believe I'd care to--be idle, " said Orde vaguely. 

"There is plenty to occupy one's time, " replied Gerald. "I have myclubs, my gymnasium, my horse, and my friends. "

"Isn't there anything that particularly attracts you?" asked Orde. 

The young man's languid eyes grew thoughtful, and he puffed morestrongly on his cigarette. 

"I should like, " said he slowly, at last, "to enter the navy. "

"Why don't you?" asked Orde bluntly. 

"Certain family reasons make it inexpedient at present, " said Gerald. "My mother is in a very nervous state; she depends on us, and any hintof our leaving her is sufficient to render her condition serious. "

By this time the two young men were well uptown. On Gerald's initiative, they turned down a side street, and shortly came to a stop. 

"That is my gymnasium, " said Gerald, pointing to a building across theway. "Won't you come in with me? I am due now for my practice. "

XVII

Orde's evening was a disappointment to him. Mrs. Bishop had, byCarroll's report, worked feverishly at the altar cloth all theafternoon. As a consequence, she had gone to bed with a bad headache. This state of affairs seemed to throw the entire family into a stateof indecision. It was divided in mind as to what to do, the absoluteinutility of any effort balancing strongly against a sense of what theinvalid expected. 

"I wonder if mother wouldn't like just a taste of this beef, " speculatedthe general, moving fussily in his chair. "I believe somebody ought totake some up. She MIGHT want it. "

The man departed with the plate, but returned a few moments later, impassive--but still with the plate. 

"Has she got her hot-water bag?" asked the boy unexpectedly. 

"Yes, Master Kendrick, " replied the butler. 

After a preoccupied silence the general again broke out:

"Seems to me somebody ought to be up there with her. "

"You know, father, that she can't stand any one in the room, " saidCarroll equably. 

Toward the close of the meal, however, a distant bell tinkled faintly. Every one jumped as though guilty. Carroll said a hasty excuse and ranout. After ringing the bell, the invalid had evidently anticipated itsanswer by emerging from her room to the head of the stairs, for Ordecaught the sharp tones of complaint, and overheard something about "takeall night to eat a simple meal, when I'm lying here suffering. "

At the end of an interval a maid appeared in the doorway to say thatMiss Carroll sent word she would not be down again for a time, and didnot care for any more dinner. This seemed to relieve the general's mindof responsibility. He assumed his little fussy air of cheerfulness, told several stories of the war, and finally, after Kendrick had left, brought out some whisky and water. He winked slyly at Orde. 

"Can't do this before the youngsters, you know, " he chirruped craftily. 

Throughout the meal Gerald had sat back silent, a faint amusement in hiseye. After dinner he arose, yawned, consulted his watch, and departed, pleading an engagement. Orde lingered some time, listening to thegeneral, in the hope that Carroll would reappear. She did not, sofinally he took his leave. 

He trudged back to his hotel gloomily. The day had passed in a mostunsatisfactory manner, according to his way of looking at it. Yet he hadcome more clearly to an understanding of the girl; her cheerfulness, herunselfishness, and, above all, the sweet, beautiful philosophy of lifethat must lie back, to render her so uncomplainingly the slave of theself-willed woman, yet without the indifferent cynicism of Gerald, thesullen, yet real, partisanship of Kendrick, or the general's week-kneedacquiescence. 

The next morning he succeeded in making an arrangement by letter for anexcursion to the newly projected Central Park. Promptly at two o'clockhe was at the Bishops' house. To his inquiry the butler said that Mrs. Bishop had recovered from her indisposition, and that Miss Bishop wouldbe down immediately. Orde had not long to wait for her. The SWISH, PAT-PAT of her joyous descent of the stairs brought him to his feet. Sheswept aside the portieres, and stood between their folds, bidding himwelcome. 

"I'm so sorry about last night, " said she, "but poor mother does dependon me so at such times. Isn't it a gorgeous day to walk? It won't bemuch like OUR woods, will it? But it will be something. OH, I'm so gladto get out!"

She was in one of her elfish moods, the languid grace of her sleepy-eyedmoments forgotten. With a little cry of rapture she ran to the piano, and dashed into a gay, tinkling air with brilliancy and abandon. Herhead, surmounted by a perky, high-peaked, narrow-brimmed hat, with aflaming red bird in front, glorified by the braid and "waterfall" ofthat day, bent forward and turned to flash an appeal for sympathy towardOrde. 

"There, I feel more able to stay on earth!" she cried, springing to herfeet. "Now I'll get on my gloves and we'll start. "

She turned slowly before the mirror, examining quite frankly the hangof her skirt, the fit of her close-cut waist, the turn of the adorableround, low-cut collars that were then the mode. 

"It pays to be particular; we are in New York, " she answered, orparried, Orde's glance of admiration. 

The gloves finally drawn on and buttoned, Orde held aside the portieres, and she passed fairly under his uplifted hand. He wanted to drop hisarm about her, this slender girl with her quaint dignity, her bird-likeways, her gentle, graceful, mysterious, feminine soul. The flame-redbird lent its colour to her cheeks; her eyes, black and fathomless, thepupils wide in this dim light, shone with two stars of delight. 

But, as they moved toward the massive front doors, Mrs. Bishop camedown the stairs behind them. She, too, was dressed for the street. Shereceived Orde's greeting and congratulation over her improved healthin rather an absent manner. Indeed, as soon as she could hurry thispreliminary over, she plunged into what evidently she considered a moreimportant matter. 

"You aren't thinking of going out, are you?" she asked Carroll. 

"I told you, mother; don't you remember? Mr. Orde and I are going to geta little air in the park. "

"I'm sorry, " said Mrs. Bishop, with great brevity and decision, "butI'm going to the rectory to help Mr. Merritt, and I shall want you to gotoo, to see about the silver. "

"But, mother, " expostulated Carroll, "wouldn't Marie do just as well?"

"You know very well she can't be trusted without direction. "

"I DO so want to go to the park, " said Carroll wistfully. Mrs. Bishop'sthin, nervous figure jerked spasmodically. "There is very little askedof you from morning until night, " she said, with some asperity, "and Ishould think you'd have some slight consideration for the fact that I'mjust up from a sick bed to spare me all you could. Besides which, youdo very little for the church. I won't insist. Do exactly as you thinkbest. "

Carroll threw a pathetic glance at Orde. 

"How soon are you going?" she asked her mother. 

"In about ten minutes, " replied Mrs. Bishop; "as soon as I've seenHonorine about the dinner. " She seemed abruptly to realise that theamenities demanded something of her. "I'm sorry we must go so soon, " shesaid briefly to Orde, "but of course church business--We shall hope tosee you often. "

Once more Orde held aside the curtains. The flame-bird drooped from thetwilight of the hall into the dimness of the parlour. All the brightnessseemed to have drained from the day, and all the joy of life seemedto have faded from the girl's soul. She sank into a chair, and triedpathetically to smile across at Orde. 

"I'm such a baby about disappointments, " said she. 

"I know, " he replied, very gently. 

"And it's such a blue and gold day. "

"I know, " he repeated. 

She twisted her glove in her lap, a bright spot of colour burning ineach cheek. 

"Mother is not well, and she has a great deal to try her. Poor mother!"she said softly, her head cast down. 

"I know, " said Orde in his gentle tones. 

After a moment he arose to go. She remained seated, her head down. 

"I'm sorry about this afternoon, " said he cheerfully, "but it couldn'tbe helped, could it? Jane used to tell me about your harp playing. I'mgoing to come in to hear you this evening. May I?"

"Yes, " she said, in a stifled voice, and held out her hand. She satquite still until she heard the front door close after him; then she ranto the curtains and looked after his sturdy, square figure, as it swungup the street. 

"Well done; oh, well done, gentle heart!" she breathed after him. Thenshe went back to the piano. 

But Orde's mouth, could she have seen it, was set in grim lines, andhis feet, could she have heard them, rang on the pavement with quitesuperfluous vigour. He turned to the left, and, without pause, walkedsome ten or twelve miles. 

The evening turned out very well, fortunately; Orde could not have stoodmuch more. They had the parlour quite to themselves. Carroll took thecover from the tall harp, and, leaning her cheek against it, she playeddreamily for a half hour. Her arms were bare, and as her fingers reachedout lingeringly and caressingly to draw the pure, golden chords fromthe golden instrument, her soft bosom pressed against the broadsounding board. There is about the tones of a harp well played somethingluminous, like rich, warm sunlight. When the girl muted the strings atlast, it seemed to Orde as though all at once the room had perceptiblydarkened. He took his leave finally, his spirit soothed and restored. 

Tranquillity was not for long, however. Orde's visits were, naturally, as frequent as possible. To them almost instantly Mrs. Bishop opposedthe strong and intuitive jealousy of egotism. She had as yet no fears asto the young man's intentions, but instinctively she felt an influencethat opposed her own supreme dominance. In consequence, Orde had muchtime to himself. Carroll and the rest of the family, with the possibleexception of Gerald, shared the belief that the slightest realopposition to Mrs. Bishop would suffice to throw her into one of her"spells, " a condition of alarming and possibly genuine collapse. "Todrive mother into a spell" was an expression of the worst possibledomestic crime. It accused the perpetrator--through Mrs. Bishop--offorgetting the state of affairs, of ingratitude for care and affection, of common inhumanity, and of impiety in rendering impossible ofperformance the multifarious church duties Mrs. Bishop had invented andassumed as so many particularly shining virtues. Orde soon discoveredthat Carroll went out in society very little for the simple reason thatshe could never give an unqualified acceptance to an invitation. At thelast moment, when she had donned her street wraps and the carriage wasat the door, she was liable to be called back, either to assist at somereligious function, which, by its sacred character, was supposed to haveprecedence over everything, or to attend a nervous crisis, brought onby some member of the household, or by mere untoward circumstances. Thegirl always acquiesced most sweetly in these recurrent disappointments. And the very fact that she accepted few invitations gave Orde many morechances to see her, in spite of Mrs. Bishop's increasing exactions. He did not realise this fact, however, but ground his teeth and clungblind-eyed to his temper whenever the mother cut short his visits orannulled his engagements on some petty excuse of her own. He couldalmost believe these interruptions malicious, were it not that he soondiscovered Mrs. Bishop well disposed toward him personally whenever heshowed himself ready to meet her even quarter way on the topics thatinterested her--the church and her health. 

In this manner the week passed. Orde saw as much as he could of MissBishop. The remainder of the time he spent walking the streets andreading in the club rooms to which Gerald's courtesy had given himaccess. Gerald himself seemed to be much occupied. Precisely at elevenevery morning, however, he appeared at the gymnasium for his practice;and in this Orde dropped into the habit of joining him. When the youngmen first stripped in each other's presence, they eyed each other witha secret surprise. Gerald's slender and elegant body turned out to besmoothly and gracefully muscled on the long lines of the Flying Mercury. His bones were small, but his flesh was hard, and his skin healthy withthe flow of blood beneath. Orde, on the other hand, had earned from theriver the torso of an ancient athlete. The round, full arch of his chestwas topped by a mass of clean-cut muscle; across his back, beneaththe smooth skin, the muscles rippled and ridged and dimpled with everymovement; the beautiful curve of the deltoids, from the point of theshoulder to the arm, met the other beautiful curve of the unflexedbiceps and that fulness of the back arm so often lacking in a one-sideddevelopment; the surface of the abdomen showed the peculiar corrugationof the very strong man; the round, columnar neck arose massive. 

"By Jove!" said Gerald, roused at last from his habitual apathy. 

"What's the matter?" asked Orde, looking up from tying the rubber-soledshoes that Gerald had lent him. 

"Murphy, " called Gerald, "come here. "

A very hairy, thick-set, bullet-headed man, the type ofsemi-professional "handlers, " emerged from somewhere across thegymnasium. 

"Do you think you could down this fellow?" asked Gerald. 

Murphy looked Orde over critically. 

"Who ye ringin' in on me?" he inquired. 

"This is a friend of mine, " said Gerald severely. 

"Beg your pardon. The gentleman is well put up. How much experience hashe had?"

"Ever box much?" Gerald asked Orde. 

"Box?" Orde laughed. "Never had time for that sort of thing. Had thegloves on a few times. "

"Where did you get your training, sir?" asked the handler. 

"My training?" repeated Orde, puzzled. "Oh, I see! I was always prettyheavy, and I suppose the work on the river keeps a man in pretty goodshape. "

Gerald's languor had vanished, and a glint had appeared in his eye thatwould have reminded Orde of Miss Bishop's most mischievous mood could hehave seen it. 

"Put on the gloves with Murphy, " he suggested, "will you? I'd like tosee you two at it. "

"Surely, " agreed Orde good-naturedly. "I'm not much good at it, but I'djust as soon try. " He was evidently not in the least afraid to meet thehandler, though as evidently without much confidence in his own skill. 

"All right; I'll be with you in a second, " said Gerald, disappearing. Inthe anteroom he rung a bell, and to the boy who leisurely answered itssummons he said rapidly:

"Run over to the club and find Mr. Winslow, Mr. Clark, and whoeverelse is in the smoking room, and tell them from me to cone over to thegymnasium. Tell them there's some fun on. "

Then he returned to the gymnasium floor, where Murphy was answeringOrde's questions as to the apparatus. While the two men were pulling onthe gloves, Gerald managed a word apart with the trainer. 

"Can you do him, Murph?" he whispered. 

"Sure!" said the handler. "Them kind's always as slow as dray-horses. They gets muscle-bound. "

"Give it to him, " said Gerald, "but don't kill him. He's a friend ofmine. "

Then he stepped back, the same joy in his soul that inspires ariverman when he encounters a high-banker; a hunter when he takes out agreenhorn, or a cowboy as he watches the tenderfoot about to climb thebronco. 

"Time!" said he. 

The first round was sharp. When Gerald called the end, Orde grinned athim cheerfully. 

"Don't look like I was much at this game, does it?" said he. "I wouldn'tpull down many persimmons out of that tree. Your confounded man's toolively; I couldn't hit him with a shotgun. "

Orde had stood like a rock, his feet planted to the floor, while Murphyhad circled around him hitting at will. Orde hit back, but withoutlanding. Nevertheless Murphy, when questioned apart, did not seemsatisfied. 

"The man's pig-iron, " said he. "I punched him plenty hard enough, and itdidn't seem to jar him. "

The gallery at one end the running track had by flow half filled withinterested spectators. 

"Time!" called Gerald for round two. 

This time Murphy went in more viciously, aiming and measuring his blowsaccurately. Orde stood as before, a humourous smile of self-depreciationon his face, hitting back at the elusive Murphy, but without mucheffect, his feet never stirring in their tracks. The handler used hisbest tactics and landed almost at will, but without apparent damage. Hegrew ugly--finally lost his head. 

"Well, if ye will have it!" he muttered, and aimed what was intended asa knockout blow. 

Gerald uttered a half cry of warning as his practised eye caughtMurphy's intention. The blow landed. Orde's head snapped back, but tothe surprise of every one the punch had no other effect, and a quickexchange of infighting sent Murphy staggering back from the encounter. The smile had disappeared from Orde's face, and his eye had calmed. 

"Look here, " he called to Gerald, "I don't understand this game verywell. At school we used 'taps. ' Is a man supposed to hit hard?"

Gerald hesitated, then looked beyond Orde to the gallery. To a man itmade frantic and silent demonstration. 

"Of course you hit, " he replied. "You can't hurt any one with those biggloves. "

Orde turned back to his antagonist. The latter advanced once more, his bullet head sunk between his shoulders, his little eyes twinkling. Evidently Mr. Bishop's friend would now take the aggressive, and forwardmovement would deliver an extra force to the professional's blows. 

Orde did not wait for Murphy, however. Like a tiger he sprang forward, hitting out fiercely, first with one hand then with the other. Murphygave ground, blocked, ducked, exerted all a ring general's skill eitherto stop or avoid the rush. Orde followed him insistent. Several times helanded, but always when Murphy was on the retreat, so the blows hadnot much weight. Several times Murphy ducked in and planted a number ofshort-arm jabs at close range. The round ended almost immediately to astorm of applause from the galleries. 

"What do you think of his being muscle-bound?" Gerald asked Murphy, asthe latter flung himself panting on the wrestling mat for his rest. 

"He's quick as chained lightning, " acknowledged the other grudgingly. "But I'll get him. He can't keep that up; he'll be winded in half aminute. "

Orde sat down on a roll of mat. His smile had quite vanished, and heseemed to be awaiting eagerly the beginning of the next round. 

"Time!" called Gerald for the third. 

Orde immediately sprang at his adversary, repeating the headlong rushwith which the previous round had ended. Murphy blocked, ducked, andkept away, occasionally delivering a jolt as opportunity offered, awaiting the time when Orde's weariness would leave him at the other'smercy. That moment did not come. The young man hammered away tirelessly, insistently, delivering a hurricane of his two-handed blows, pressingrelentlessly in as Murphy shifted and gave ground, his head up, hiseyes steady, oblivious to the return hammering the now desperate handleropposed to him. Two minutes passed without perceptible slackeningin this terrific pace. The gallery was in an uproar, and some of themembers were piling down the stairs to the floor. Perspiration stood outall over Murphy's body. His blows failed of their effect, and some ofOrde's were landing. At length, bewildered more by the continuance thanthe violence of the attack, he dropped his ring tactics and closed in tostraight slugging, blow against blow, stand up, give and take. 

As he saw his opponent stand, Orde uttered a sound of satisfaction. He dropped slightly his right shoulder behind his next blow. The glovecrashed straight as a pile-driver through Murphy's upraised hands tohis face, which it met with a smack. The trainer, lifted bodily fromthe ground, was hurled through the air, to land doubled up against thesupports of a parallel bars. There he lay quite still, his palms up, hishead sunk forward. 

Orde stared at him a moment in astonishment, as though expecting himto arise. When, however, he perceived that Murphy was in realityunconscious, he tore off the gloves and ran forward to kneel by theprofessional's side. 

"I didn't suppose one punch like that would hurt him, " he muttered tothe men crowding around. "Especially with the gloves. Do you supposehe's killed?"

But already Murphy's arms were making aimless motions, and a deep breathraised his chest. 

"He's just knocked out, " reassured one of the men, examining theprostrate handler with a professional attention. "He'll be as good asever in five minutes. Here, " he commanded one of the gymnasium rubberswho had appeared, "lend a hand here with some water. "

The clubmen crowded about, all talking at once. 

"You're a wonder, my friend, " said one. 

"By Jove, he's hardly breathing fast after all that rushing, " said asecond. 

"So you didn't think one punch like that would hurt him, " quoted anotherwith good-natured sarcasm. 

"No, " said Orde, simply. "I've hit men that hard before with my barefist. "

"Did they survive?"

"Surely. "

"What kind of armour-plates were they, in heaven's name?"

Orde had recovered his balance and humour. 

"Just plain ordinary rivermen, " said he with a laugh. 

"Gentlemen, " struck in Gerald, "I want to introduce you to my friend. "He performed the introductions. It was necessary for him to explainapart that Orde was in reality his friend, an amateur, a chance visitorin the city. All in all, the affair made quite a little stir, and wentfar to give Orde a standing with these sport-loving youths. 

Finally Gerald and Orde were permitted to finish their gymnasiumpractice. Murphy had recovered, and came forward. 

"You have a strong punch, sir, and you're a born natural fighter, sir, "said he. "If you had a few lessons in boxing, sir, I'd put you againstthe best. "

But later, when the young men were resting, each under his sheet aftera rub-down, the true significance of the affair for Orde came out. Sincethe fight, Gerald's customary lassitude of manner seemed quite to haveleft him. His eye was bright, a colour mounted beneath the pale olive ofhis skin, the almost effeminate beauty of his countenance had animated. He looked across at Orde several times, hesitated, and at last decidedto speak. 

"Look here, Orde, " said he, "I want to confess something to you. Whenyou first came here three days ago, I had lots of fun with myself aboutyou. You know your clothes aren't quite the thing, and I thought yourmanner was queer, and all that. I was a cad. I want to apologise. You'rea man, and I like you better than any fellow I've met for a long time. And if there's any trouble--in the future--that is--oh, hang it, I'm onyour side--you know what I mean!"

Orde smiled slowly. 

"Bishop, " was his unexpected reply, "you're not near so much of a dandyas you think you are. "

XVIII

Affairs went thus for a week. Orde was much at the Bishop residence, where he was cordially received by the general, where he gained anoccasional half-hour with Carroll, and where he was almost ignored byMrs. Bishop in her complete self-absorption. Indeed, it is to be doubtedwhether he attained any real individuality to that lady, who looked onall the world outside her family as useful or useless to the church. 

In the course of the happy moments he had alone with Carroll, hearrived at a more intimate plane of conversation with her. He came to anunderstanding of her unquestioning acceptance of Mrs. Bishop's attitude. Carroll truly believed that none but herself could perform for hermother the various petty offices that lady demanded from her next ofkin, and that her practical slavery was due by every consideration offilial affection. To Orde's occasional tentative suggestion that theservice was of a sort better suited to a paid companion or even ahousemaid, she answered quite seriously that it made mother nervous tohave others about her, and that it was better to do these things than tothrow her into a "spell. " Orde chafed at first over seeing his preciousopportunities thus filched from him; later he fretted because heperceived that Carroll was forced, however willingly, to labours beyondher strength, to irksome confinement, and to that intimate and wearingclose association with the abnormal which in the long run is bound todeaden the spirit. He lost sight of his own grievance in the matter. With perhaps somewhat of exaggeration he came mightily to desire for hermore of the open air, both of body and spirit. Often when tramping backto his hotel he communed savagely with himself, turning the problem overand over in his mind until, like a snowball, it had gathered to itselfcolossal proportions. 

And in his hotel room he brooded over the state of affairs until histhoughts took a very gloomy tinge indeed. To begin with, in spite of hismother's assurance, he had no faith in his own cause. His acquaintancewith Carroll was but an affair of months, and their actual meetingscomprised incredibly few days. Orde was naturally humble-minded. Itdid not seem conceivable to him that he could win her without a longcourtship. And superadded was the almost intolerable weight of Carroll'sideas as to her domestic duties. Although Orde held Mrs. Bishop'sexactions in very slight esteem, and was most sceptical in regard tothe disasters that would follow their thwarting, nevertheless he had toconfess to himself that all Carroll's training, life, the very purityand sweetness of her disposition lent the situation an iron reality forher. He became much discouraged. 

Nevertheless, at the very moment when he had made up his mind that itwould be utterly useless even to indulge in hope for some years to come, he spoke. It came about suddenly, and entirely without premeditation. 

The two had escaped for a breath of air late in the evening. Followingthe conventions, they merely strolled to the end of the block and back, always within sight of the house. Fifth Avenue was gay with illuminationand the prancing of horses returning uptown or down to the WashingtonSquare district. In contrast the side street, with its austere rows ofbrownstone houses, each with its area and flight of steps, its spacedgas lamps, its deserted roadway, seemed very still and quiet. Carrollwas in a tired and pensive mood. She held her head back, breathingdeeply. 

"It's only a little strip, but it's the stars, " said she, looking up tothe sky between the houses. "They're so quiet and calm and big. "

She seemed to Orde for the first time like a little girl. The maturercomplexities which we put on with years, with experience, and with theknowledge of life had for the moment fallen from her, leaving merely thesimple soul of childhood gazing in its eternal wonder at the stars. Awave of tenderness lifted Orde from his feet. He leaned over, his breathcoming quickly. 

"Carroll!" he said. 

She looked up at him, and shrank back. 

"No, no! You mustn't, " she cried. She did not pretend to misunderstand. The preliminaries seemed in some mysterious fashion to have been saidlong ago. 

"It's life or death with me, " he said. 

"I must not, " she cried, fluttering like a bird. "I promised myself longago that I must always, ALWAYS take care of mother. "

"Please, please, dear, " pleaded Orde. He had nothing more to say thanthis, just the simple incoherent symbols of pleading; but in such crisesit is rather the soul than the tongue that speaks. His hand met hers andclosed about it. It did not respond to his grasp, nor did it draw away, but lay limp and warm and helpless in his own. 

She shook her head slowly. 

"Don't you care for me, dear?" asked Orde very gently. 

"I have no right to tell you that, " answered she. "I have tried, oh, sohard, to keep you from saying this, for I knew I had no right to hearyou. "

Orde's heart leaped with a wild exultation. 

"You do care for me!" he cried. 

They had mounted the steps and stood just within the vestibule. Ordedrew her toward him, but she repulsed him gently. 

"No, " she shook her head. "Please be very good to me. I'm very weak. "

"Carroll!" cried Orde. "Tell me that you love me! Tell me that you'llmarry me!"

"It would kill mother if I should leave her, " she said sadly. 

"But you must marry me, " pleaded Orde. "We are made for each other. Godmeant us for each other. "

"It would have to be after a great many years, " she said doubtfully. 

She pulled the bell, which jangled faintly in the depths of the house. 

"Good-night, " she said. "Come to me to-morrow. No, you must not comein. " She cut short Orde's insistence and the eloquence that had justfound its life by slipping inside the half-open door and closing itafter her. 

Orde stood for a moment uncertain; then turned away and walked up thestreet, his eyes so blinded by the greater glory that he all but randown an inoffensive passer-by. 

At the hotel he wrote a long letter to his mother. The first part wasfull of the exultation of his discovery. He told of his good fortunequite as something just born, utterly forgetting his mother'spredictions before he came East. Then as the first effervescence died, a more gloomy view of the situation came uppermost. To his heatedimagination the deadlock seemed complete. Carroll's devotion to what sheconsidered her duty appeared unbreakable. In the reaction Orde doubtedwhether he would have it otherwise. And then his fighting blood surgedback to his heart. All the eloquence, the arguments, the pleadings heshould have commanded earlier in the evening hurried belated to theirposts. After the manner of the young and imaginative when in thewhite fire of emotion, he began dramatising scenes between Carroll andhimself. He saw them plainly. He heard the sound of his own voice ashe rehearsed the arguments which should break her resolution. A woman'sduty to her own soul; her obligation toward the man she could make ormar by her love; her self-respect; the necessity of a break some time;the advantage of having the crisis over with now rather than later; abelief in the ultimate good even to Mrs. Bishop of throwing thatlady more on her own resources; and so forth and so on down a list ofarguments obvious enough or trivial enough, but all inspired by the soulof fervour, all ennobled by the spirit of truth that lies back of themajor premise that a woman should cleave to a man, forsaking all others. Orde sat back in his chair, his eyes vacant, his pen all but fallingfrom his hand. He did not finish the letter to his mother. After a whilehe went upstairs to his own room. 

The fever of the argument coursed through his veins all that long night. Over and over again he rehearsed it in wearisome repetition until it hadassumed a certain and almost invariable form. And when he had reachedthe end of his pleading he began it over again, until the daylight foundhim weary and fevered. He arose and dressed himself. He could eat nobreakfast. By a tremendous effort of the will he restrained himself fromgoing over to Ninth Street until the middle of the morning. 

He entered the drawing-room to find her seated at the piano. His heartbounded, and for an instant he stood still, summoning his forces to thestruggle for which he had so painfully gathered his ammunition. She didnot look up as he approached until he stood almost at her shoulder. Thenshe turned to him and held out both her hands. 

"It is no use, Jack, " she said. "I care for you too much. I will marryyou whenever you say. "

XIX

Orde left that evening early. This was at Carroll's request. Shepreferred herself to inform her family of the news. 

"I don't know yet how mother is going to get along, " said she. "Comeback to-morrow afternoon and see them all. "

The next morning Orde, having at last finished and despatched the letterto his mother, drifted up the avenue and into the club. As he passedthe smoking room he caught sight of Gerald seated in an armchair by thewindow. He entered the room and took a seat opposite the young fellow. 

Gerald held out his hand silently, which the other took. 

"I'm glad to hear it, " said Gerald at last. "Very glad. I told you Iwas on your side. " He hesitated, then went on gravely: "Poor Carroll ishaving a hard time, though. I think it's worse than she expected. It'sno worse than I expected. You are to be one of the family, so I am goingto give you a piece of advice. It's something, naturally, I wouldn'tspeak of otherwise. But Carroll is my only sister, and I want her to behappy. I think you are the man to make her so, but I want you to avoidone mistake. Fight it out right now, and never give back the ground youwin. "

"I feel that, " replied Orde quietly. 

"Mother made father resign from the army; and while he's a dear old boy, he's never done anything since. She holds me--although I see throughher--possibly because I'm weak or indifferent, possibly because I havea silly idea I can make a bad situation better by hanging around. She israpidly turning Kendrick into a sullen little prig, because he believesimplicitly all the grievances against the world and the individual shepours out to him. You see, I have no illusions concerning my family. Only Carroll has held to her freedom of soul, because that's the joyous, free, sweet nature of her, bless her! For the first time she's pittedher will against mother's, and it's a bad clash. "

"Your mother objected?" asked Orde. 

Gerald laughed a little bitterly. "It was very bad, " said he. "You'vegrown horns, hoofs, and a tail overnight. There's nothing too criminalto have escaped your notice. I have been forbidden to consort with you. So has the general. The battle of last night had to do with your comingto the house at all. As it is not Carroll's house, naturally she has noright to insist. "

"I shall not be permitted to see her?" cried Orde. 

"I did not say that. Carroll announced then quite openly that she wouldsee you outside. I fancy that was the crux of the matter. Don't yousee? The whole affair shifted ground. Carroll has offered directdisobedience. Oh, she's a bully little fighter!" he finished in admiringaccents. "You can't quite realise what she's doing for your sake; she'snot only fighting mother, but her own heart. "

Orde found a note at the hotel, asking him to be in Washington Square athalf-past two. 

Carroll met him with a bright smile. 

"Things aren't quite right at home, " she said. "It is a great shock topoor mother at first, and she feels very strongly. Oh, it isn't you, dear; it's the notion that I can care for anybody but her. You see, she's been used to the other idea so long that I suppose it seemed apart of the universe to her. She'll get used to it after a little, butit takes time. "

Orde examined her face anxiously. Two bright red spots burned on hercheeks; her eyes flashed with a nervous animation, and a faint shade hadsketched itself beneath them. 

"You had a hard time, " he murmured, "you poor dear!"

She smiled up at him. 

"We have to pay for the good things in life, don't we, dear? And theyare worth it. Things will come right after a little. We must not be tooimpatient. Now, let's enjoy the day. The park isn't so bad, is it?"

At five o'clock Orde took her back to her doorstep, where he left her. 

This went on for several days. 

At the end of that time Orde could not conceal from himself that thestrain was beginning to tell. Carroll's worried expression grew fromday to day, while the animation that characterised her manner whenfreed from the restraint became more and more forced. She was as thoughdominated by some inner tensity, which she dared not relax even for amoment. To Orde's questionings she replied as evasively as she could, assuring him always that matters were going as well as she had expected;that mother was very difficult; that Orde must have patience, for thingswould surely come all right. She begged him to remain quiescent untilshe gave him the word; and she implored it so earnestly that Orde, though he chafed, was forced to await the turn of events. Everyafternoon she met him, from two to five. The situation gave littleopportunity for lovers' demonstrations. She seemed entirely absorbed bythe inner stress of the struggle she was going through, so that hardlydid she seem able to follow coherently even plans for the future. Sheappeared, however, to gain a mysterious refreshment from Orde'smere proximity; so gradually he, with that streak of almost feminineintuition which is the especial gift to lovers, came to the point ofsitting quite silent with her, clasping her hand out of sight of thechance passer-by. When the time came to return, they arose and walkedback to Ninth Street, still in silence. At the door they said good-bye. He kissed her quite soberly. 

"I wish I could help, sweetheart, " said he. 

She shook her head at him. 

"You do help, " she replied. 

From Gerald at the club, Orde sought more intimate news of what wasgoing on. For several days, however, the young man absented himself fromhis usual haunts. It was only at the end of the week that Orde succeededin finding him. 

"No, " Gerald answered his greeting, "I haven't been around much. I'vebeen sticking pretty close home. "

Little by little, Orde's eager questions drew out the truth of thesituation. Mrs. Bishop had shut herself up in a blind and incredibleobstinacy, whence she sallied with floods of complaints, tears, accusations, despairs, reproaches, vows, hysterics--all the batteryof the woman misunderstood, but in which she refused to listen to aconsecutive conversation. If Carroll undertook to say anything, the third word would start her mother off into one of her long andhysterical tirades. It was very wearing, and there seemed to be nothinggained from day to day. Her child had disobeyed her. And as a climax, she had assumed the impregnable position of a complete prostration, wherein she demanded the minute care of an invalid in the crisis of adisorder. She could bear no faintest ray of illumination, no lightestfootfall. In a hushed twilight she lay, her eyes swathed, moaning feeblythat her early dissolution at the hands of ingratitude was imminent. Thus she established a deadlock which was likely to continueindefinitely. The mere mention of the subject nearest Carroll's heartbrought the feeble complaint:

"Do you want to kill me?"

The only scrap of victory to be snatched from this stricken fieldwas the fact that Carroll insisted on going to meet her lover everyafternoon. The invalid demanded every moment of her time, either forpersonal attendance or in fulfilment of numerous and exacting churchduties. An attempt, however, to encroach thus on the afternoon hours meta stone wall of resolution on Carroll's part. 

This was the situation Orde gathered from his talk with Gerald. Thoughhe fretted under the tyranny exacted, he could see nothing which couldrelieve the situation save his own withdrawal. He had already longover-stayed his visit; important affairs connected with his workdemanded his attention, he had the comfort of Carroll's love assured;and the lapse of time alone could be depended on to change Mrs. Bishop'sattitude, a consummation on which Carroll seemed set. Although Orde feltall the lively dissatisfaction natural to a newly accepted lover whohad gained slight opportunity for favours, for confidences, even for themaking of plans, nevertheless he could see for the present nothing elseto do. 

The morning after he had reached this conclusion he again met Geraldat the gymnasium. That young man, while as imperturbable and languid inmovement as ever, concealed an excitement. He explained nothing untilthe two, after a shower and rub-down, were clothing themselves leisurelyin the empty couch-room. 

"Orde, " said Gerald suddenly, "I'm worried about Carroll. "

Orde straightened his back and looked steadily at Gerald, but saidnothing. 

"Mother has commenced bothering her again. It wasn't so bad as long asshe stuck to daytime, but now she's taken to prowling in a dozen times anight. I hear their voices for an hour or so at a time. I'm afraid it'sbeginning to wear on Carroll more than you realise. "

"Thank you, " said Orde briefly. 

That afternoon with Carroll he took the affair firmly in hand. 

"This thing has come to the point where it must stop, " said he, "andI'm going to stop it. I have some rights in the matter of the health andcomfort of the girl I love. "

"What do you intend to do?" asked Carroll, frightened. 

"I shall have it out with your mother, " replied Orde. 

"You mustn't do that, " implored Carroll. "It would do absolutely nogood, and would just result in a quarrel that could never be patchedup. "

"I don't know as I care particularly, " said Orde. 

"But I do. Think--she is my mother. "

Orde stirred uneasily with a mental reservation as to selfishness, butsaid nothing. 

"And think what it means to a girl to be married and go away from homefinally without her parent's consent. It's the most beautiful and sacredthing in her life, and she wants it to be perfect. It's worth waitingand fighting a little for. After all, we are both young, and we haveknown each other such a very short time. "

So she pleaded with him, bringing forward all the unanswerable argumentsbuilt by the long average experience of the world--arguments whichOrde could not refute, but whose falsity to the situation he felt mostkeenly. He could not specify without betraying Gerald's confidence. Raging inwardly, he consented to a further armistice. 

At his hotel he found a telegram. He did not open it until he hadreached his own room. It was from home, urging his immediate return forthe acceptance of some contracted work. 

"To hell with the contracted work!" he muttered savagely, and calling abell-boy, sent an answer very much to that effect. Then he plunged hishands into his pockets, stretched out his legs, and fell into a deep andgloomy meditation. 

He was interrupted by a knock on the door. 

"Come in!" he called, without turning his head. 

He heard the door open and shut. After a moment he looked around. Kendrick Bishop stood watching him. 

Orde lit the gas. 

"Hello, Kendrick!" said he. "Sit down. " The boy made no reply. Ordelooked at him curiously, and saw that he was suffering from an intenseexcitement. His frame trembled convulsively, his lips were white, hisface went red and pale by turns. Evidently he had something to say, butcould not yet trust his voice. Orde sat down and waited. 

"You've got to let my mother alone, " he managed to say finally. 

"I have done nothing to your mother, Kendrick, " said Orde kindly. 

"You've brought her to the point of death, " asserted Keudrick violently. "You're hounding her to her grave. You're turning those she loves bestagainst her. "

Orde thought to catch the echo of quotation in these words. 

"Did your mother send you to me?" he asked. 

"If we had any one else worth the name of man in the family, I wouldn'thave to come, " said Kendrick, almost in the manner of one repeating alesson. 

"What do you want me to do?" asked Orde after a moment of thought. 

"Go away, " cried Kendrick. "Stop this unmanly contest against adefenceless woman. "

"I cannot do that, " replied Orde quietly. 

Kendrick's face assumed a livid pallor, and his eyes seemed to turnblack with excitement. Trembling in every limb, but without hesitation, he advanced on Orde, drew a short riding-whip from beneath his coat, andslashed the young man across the face. Orde made an involuntary movementto arise, but sank back, and looked steadily at the boy. Once againKendrick hit; raised his arm for the third time; hesitated. His lipswrithed, and then, with a sob, he cast the little whip from him andburst from the room. 

Orde sat without moving, while two red lines slowly defined themselvesacross his face. The theatrical quality of the scene and the turgidrhetorical bathos of the boy's speeches attested his youth and theunformed violence of his emotions. Did they also indicate a rehearsal, or had the boy merely been goaded to vague action by implicit belief ina woman's vagaries? Orde did not know, but the incident brought home tohim, as nothing else could, the turmoil of that household. 

"Poor youngster!" he concluded his reverie, and went to wash his face inhot water. 

He had left Carroll that afternoon in a comparatively philosophicaland hopeful frame of mind. The next day she came to him with hurried, nervous steps, her usually pale cheeks mounting danger signals offlaming red, her eyes swimming. When she greeted him she choked, and twoof the tears overflowed. Quite unmindful of the nursemaids across thesquare, Orde put his arm comfortingly about her shoulder. She hid herface against his sleeve and began softly to cry. 

Orde did not attempt as yet to draw from her the cause of this unusualagitation. A park bench stood between two dense bushes, screened fromall directions save one. To this he led her. He comforted her as onecomforts a child, stroking clumsily her hair, murmuring trivialitieswithout meaning, letting her emotion relieve itself. After awhile sherecovered somewhat her control of herself and sat up away from him, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief dampened into a tiny wad. Buteven after she had shaken her head vigorously at last, and smiled up athim rather tremulously in token that the storm was over, she would nottell him that anything definite had happened to bring on the outburst. 

"I just needed you, " she said, "that's all. It's just nothing but beinga woman, I think. You'll get used to little things like that. "

"This thing has got to quit!" said he grimly. 

She said nothing, but reached up shyly and touched his face whereKendrick's whip had stung, and her eyes became very tender. A carriagerolled around Washington Arch, and, coming to a stand, discharged itssingle passenger on the pavement. 

"Why, it's Gerald!" cried Carroll, surprised. 

The young man, catching sight of them, picked his way daintily andleisurely toward them. He was, as usual, dressed with meticulous nicety, the carnation in his button-hole, the gloss on his hat and shoes, thefreshness on his gloves, the correct angle on his stick. His dark, longface with its romantic moustache, and its almost effeminate soft eyes, was as unemotional and wearied as ever. As he approached, he raised hisstick slightly by way of salutation. 

"I have brought, " said he, "a carriage, and I wish you would both do methe favour to accompany me on a short excursion. "

Taking their consent for granted, he signalled the vehicle, whichrapidly approached. 

The three--Carroll and Orde somewhat bewildered--took their seats. During a brief drive, Gerald made conversation on different topics, apparently quite indifferent as to whether or not his companionsreplied. After an interval the carriage drew up opposite a brown-stonedwelling on a side street. Gerald rang the bell, and a moment later thethree were ushered by a discreet and elderly maid into a little squarereception-room immediately off the hall. The maid withdrew. 

Gerald carefully deposited his top hat on the floor, placed in it hisgloves, and leaned his stick against its brim. 

"I have brought you here, among other purposes, to hear from me a littlebrief wisdom drawn from experience and the observation of life, " hebegan, addressing his expectant and curious guests. "That wisdom isbriefly this: there comes a time in the affairs of every household whena man must assert himself as the ruler. In all the details he may dependon the woman's judgment, experience, and knowledge, but when it comes tothe big crises, where life is deflected into one channel or the other, then, unless the man does the deciding, he is lost for ever, andhis happiness, and the happiness of those who depend on him. This isabstruse, but I come to the particular application shortly. 

"But moments of decision are always clouded by many considerations. Thedecision is sure to cut across much that is expedient, much that seemsto be necessary, much that is dear. Carroll remembers the case of ourown father. The general would have made a name for himself in the army;his wife demanded his retirement; he retired, and his career ended. Thatwas the moment of his decision. It is very easy to say, in view of thatsimple statement, that the general was weak in yielding to his wife, buta consideration of the circumstances--"

"Why do you say all this?" interrupted Orde. 

Gerald raised his hand. 

"Believe me, it is necessary, as you will agree when you have heard methrough. Mrs. Bishop was in poor health; the general in poor financialcircumstances. The doctors said the Riviera. Mrs. Bishop's parents, whowere wealthy, furnished the money for her sojourn in that climate. Shecould not bear to be separated from her husband. A refusal to resignthen, a refusal to accept the financial aid offered, would have beencast against him as a reproach--he did not love his wife enough tosacrifice his pride, his ambition, his what-you-will. Nevertheless, thatwas his moment of decision. 

"I could multiply instances, yet it would only accumulate needlessproof. My point is that in these great moments a man can afford totake into consideration only the affair itself. Never must he think ofanything but the simple elements of the problem--he must ignore whosetoes are trodden upon, whose feelings are hurt, whose happiness isapparently marred. For note this: if a man does fearlessly the rightthing, I am convinced that in the readjustment all these conflictinginterests find themselves bettered instead of injured. You want aconcrete instance? I believe firmly that if the general had kept to hisarmy life, and made his wife conform to it, after the storm had passedshe would have settled down to a happy existence. I cannot prove it--Ibelieve it. "

"This may be all very true, Gerald, " said Orde, "but I fail to see whyyou have brought us to this strange house to tell it. "

"In a moment, " replied Gerald. "Have patience. Believing thatthoroughly, I have come in the last twenty-four hours to a decision. That this happens not to affect my own immediate fortunes does not seemto me to invalidate my philosophy. "

He carefully unbuttoned his frock coat, crossed his legs, produced apaper and a package from his inside pocket, and eyed the two before him. 

"I have here, " he went on suddenly, "marriage papers duly made out;in this package is a plain gold ring; in the next room is waiting, byprearrangement, a very good friend of mine in the clergy. Personally Iam at your disposal. "

He looked at them expectantly. 

"The very thing!" "Oh, no!" cried Orde and Carroll in unison. 

Nevertheless, in spite of this divergence of opinion, ten minutes laterthe three passed through the door into the back apartment--Carroll stillhesitant, Orde in triumph, Gerald as correct and unemotional as ever. 

In this back room they found waiting a young clergyman conversing easilywith two young girls. At the sight of Carroll, these latter rushedforward and overwhelmed her with endearments. Carroll broke into aquickly suppressed sob and clasped them close to her. 

"Oh, you dears!" she cried, "I'm so glad you're here!" She flashed agrateful look in Gerald's direction, and a moment later took occasion topress his arm and whisper:

"You've thought of everything! You're the dearest brother in the world!"

Gerald received this calmly, and set about organising the ceremony. Infifteen minutes the little party separated at the front door, amid achatter of congratulations and good wishes. Mr. And Mrs. Orde enteredthe cab and drove away. 

XX

"Oh, it IS the best way, dear, after all!" cried Carroll, pressing closeto her husband. "A few minutes ago I was all doubts and fears, but nowI feel so safe and settled, " she laughed happily. "It is as though Ihad belonged to you always, you old Rock of Gibraltar! and anything thathappens now will come from the outside, and not from the inside, won'tit, dear?"

"Yes, sweetheart, " said Orde. 

"Poor mother! I wonder how she'll take it. "

"We'll soon know, anyway, " replied Orde, a little grimly. 

In the hallway of the Bishop house Orde kissed her. 

"Be brave, sweetheart, " said he, "but remember that now you're my wife. "

She nodded at him gravely and disappeared. 

Orde sat in the dim parlour for what seemed to be an interminableperiod. Occasionally the sounds of distant voices rose to his ear anddied away again. The front door opened to admit some one, but Ordecould not see who it was. Twice a scurrying of feet overhead seemed toindicate the bustle of excitement. The afternoon waned. A faint whiffof cooking, escaping through some carelessly open door, was borne tohis nostrils. It grew dark, but the lamps remained unlighted. Finally heheard the rustle of the portieres, and turned to see the dim form of thegeneral standing there. 

"Bad business! bad business!" muttered the old man. "It's very hardon me. Perhaps you did the right thing--you must be good to her--but Icannot countenance this affair. It was most high-handed, sir!"

The portieres fell again, and he disappeared. 

Finally, after another interval, Carroll returned. She went immediatelyto the gas-fixture, which she lit. Orde then saw that she was sobbingviolently. She came to him, and for a moment hid her face against hisbreast. He patted her hair, waiting for her to speak. After a little shecontrolled herself. 

"How was it?" asked Orde, then. 

She shivered. 

"I never knew people could be so cruel, " she complained in almost abewildered manner. "Jack, we must go to-night. She--she has ordered meout of the house, and says she never wants to see my face again. " Shebroke down for a second. "Oh, Jack! she can't mean that. I've alwaysbeen a good daughter to her. And she's very bitter against Gerald. Oh!I told her it wasn't his fault, but she won't listen. She sent forthat odious Mr. Merritt--her rector, you know--and he supported her. Ibelieve he's angry because we did not go to him. Could you believesuch a thing! And she's shut herself up in her air of high virtue, andunderneath it she's, oh, so angry!"

"Well, it's natural she should be upset, " comforted Orde. "Don't thinktoo much of what she does now. Later she'll get over it. "

Carroll shivered again. 

"You don't know, dear, and I'm not going to tell you. Why, " she cried, "she told me that you and I were in a conspiracy to drive her to hergrave so we could get her money!"

"She must be a little crazy, " said Orde, still pacifically. 

"Come, help me, " said Carroll. "I must get my things. "

"Can't you just pack a bag and leave the rest until tomorrow? It's abouthungry time. "

"She says I must take every stitch belonging to me tonight. "

They packed trunks until late that night, quite alone. Gerald haddeparted promptly after breaking the news, probably without realisingto what a pass affairs would come. A frightened servant, evidently indisobedience of orders and in fear of destruction, brought them a trayof food, which she put down on a small table and hastily fled. In a roomdown the hall they could hear the murmur of voices where Mrs. Bishopreceived spiritual consolation from her adviser. When the trunks werepacked, Orde sent for a baggage waggon. Carroll went silently from placeto place, saying farewell to such of her treasures as she had made upher mind to leave. Orde scribbled a note to Gerald, requesting himto pack up the miscellanies and send them to Michigan by freight. Thebaggage man and Orde carried the trunks downstairs. No one appeared. Carroll and Orde walked together to the hotel. Next morning an interviewwith Gerald confirmed them in their resolution of immediate departure. 

"She is set in her opposition now, and at present she believes firmlythat her influence will separate you. Such a state of mind cannot bechanged in an hour. "

"And you?" asked Carroll. 

"Oh, I, " he shrugged, "will go on as usual. I have my interests. "

"I wish you would come out in our part of the country, " ventured Orde. 

Gerald smiled his fine smile. 

"Good-bye, " said he. "Going to a train is useless, and a bore toeverybody. "

Carroll threw herself on his neck in an access of passionate weeping. 

"You WILL write and tell me of everything, won't you?" she begged. 

"Of course. There now, good-bye. "

Orde followed him into the hall. 

"It would be quite useless to attempt another interview?" he inquired. 

Gerald made a little mouth. 

"I am in the same predicament as yourselves, " said he, "and have sincenine this morning taken up my quarters at the club. Please do not tellCarroll; it would only pain her. "

At the station, just before they passed in to the train, the generalappeared. 

"There, there!" he fussed. "If your mother should hear of my being here, it would be a very bad business, very bad. This is very sad; but--well, good-bye, dear; and you, sir, be good to her. And write your daddy, Carroll. He'll be lonesome for you. " He blew his nose very loudly andwiped his glasses. "Now, run along, run along, " he hurried them. "Let usnot have any scenes. Here, my dear, open this envelope when you are wellstarted. It may help cheer the journey. Not a word!"

He hurried them through the gate, paying no heed to what they weretrying to say. Then he steamed away and bustled into a cab without oncelooking back. 

When the train had passed the Harlem River and was swaying its unevenway across the open country, Carroll opened the envelope. It contained acheck for a thousand dollars. 

"Dear old daddy!" she murmured. "Our only wedding present!"

"You are the capitalist of the family, " said Orde. "You don't knowhow poor a man you've married. I haven't much more than the proverbialsilver watch and bad nickel. "

She reached out to press his hand in reassurance. He compared ithumorously with his own. 

"What a homely, knotted, tanned old thing it is by yours, " said he. 

"It's a strong hand, " she replied soberly, "it's a dear hand. " Suddenlyshe snatched it up and pressed it for a fleeting instant against hercheek, looking at him half ashamed. 

XXI

The winter months were spent at Monrovia, where Orde and his wife livedfor a time at the hotel. This was somewhat expensive, but Orde was notquite ready to decide on a home, and he developed unexpected oppositionto living at Redding in the Orde homestead. 

"No, I've been thinking about it, " he told Grandma Orde. "A young coupleshould start out on their own responsibility. I know you'd be glad tohave us, but I think it's better the other way. Besides, I must be atMonrovia a good deal of the time, and I want Carroll with me. She canmake you a good long visit in the spring, when I have to go up river. "

To this Grandma Orde, being a wise old lady, had to nod her assent, although she would much have liked her son near her. 

At Monrovia, then, they took up their quarters. Carroll soon becameacquainted with the life of the place. Monrovia, like most towns of itssort and size, consisted of an upper stratum of mill owners and lumberoperators, possessed of considerable wealth, some cultivation, and definite social ideas; a gawky, countrified, middle estate ofstorekeepers, catering both to the farm and local trade and the lumbermill operatives, generally of Holland extraction, who dwelt in simpleunpainted board shanties. The class first mentioned comprised a smallcoterie, among whom Carroll soon found two or three congenials--EdithFuller, wife of the young cashier in the bank; Valerie Cathcart, whosehusband had been killed in the Civil War; Clara Taylor, wife of theleading young lawyer of the village; and, strangely enough, MinaHeinzman, the sixteen-year-old daughter of old Heinzman, the lumberman. Nothing was more indicative of the absolute divorce of business andsocial life than the unbroken evenness of Carroll's friendship for theyounger girl. Though later the old German and Orde locked in seriousstruggle on the river, they continued to meet socially quite as usual;and the daughter of one and the wife of the other never suspectedanything out of the ordinary. This impersonality of struggle has alwaysbeen characteristic of the pioneer business man's good-nature. 

Newmark received the news of his partner's sudden marriage withoutevincing any surprise, but with a sardonic gleam in one corner of hiseye. He called promptly, conversed politely for a half hour, and thentook his leave. 

"How do you like him?" asked Orde, when he had gone. 

"He looks like a very shrewd man, " replied Carroll, picking her wordsfor fear of saying the wrong thing. 

Orde laughed. 

"You don't like him, " he stated. 

"I don't dislike him, " said Carroll. "I've not a thing against him. But we could never be in the slightest degree sympathetic. He and Idon't--don't--"

"Don't jibe, " Orde finished for her. "I didn't much think you would. Joenever was much of a society bug. " It was on the tip of Carroll'stongue to reply that "society bugs" were not the only sort she couldappreciate, but she refrained. She had begun to realise the extent ofher influence over her husband's opinion. 

Newmark did not live at the hotel. Early in the fall he had rented asmall one-story house situated just off Main Street, set well back fromthe sidewalk among clumps of oleanders. Into this he retired as a snailinto its shell. At first he took his meals at the hotel, but later heimported an impassive, secretive man-servant, who took charge ofhim completely. Neither master nor man made any friends, and in factrebuffed all advances. One Sunday, Carroll and Orde, out for a walk, passed this quaint little place, with its picket fence. 

"Let's go in and return Joe's call, " suggested Orde. 

Their knock at the door brought the calm valet. 

"Mr. Newmark is h'out, sir, " said he. "Yes, sir, I'll tell him that youcalled. "

They turned away. As they sauntered down the little brick-laid walk, Carroll suddenly pressed close to her husband's arm. 

"Jack, " she begged, "I want a little house like that, for our very own. "

"We can't afford it, sweetheart. "

"Not to own, " she explained, "just to rent. It will be next best tohaving a home of our own. "

"We'd have to have a girl, dear, " said Orde, "and we can't even affordthat, yet. "

"A girl!" cried Carroll indignantly. "For us two!"

"You couldn't do the housework and the cooking, " said Orde. "You'venever done such a thing in your life, and I won't have my little girlslaving. "

"It won't be slaving, it will be fun--just like play-housekeeping, "protested Carroll. "And I've got to learn some time. I was brought upmost absurdly, and I realise it now. "

"We'll see, " said Orde vaguely. 

The subject was dropped for the time being. Later Carroll brought it upagain. She was armed with several sheets of hotel stationery, coveredwith figures showing how much cheaper it would be to keep house than toboard. 

"You certainly make out a strong case--on paper, " laughed Orde. "If youbuy a rooster and a hen, and she raises two broods, at the end of ayear you'll have twenty-six; and if they all breed--even allowing halfroosters--you'll have over three hundred; and if they all breed, you'llhave about thirty-five hundred; and if--"

"Stop! stop!" cried Carroll, covering her ears. 

"All right, " agreed Orde equably, "but that's the way it figures. Funnythe earth isn't overrun with chickens, isn't it?"

She thrust her tables of figures into her desk drawer. "You're justmaking fun of me always, " she said reproachfully. 

Two days later Orde took her one block up the street to look at atiny little house tucked on a fifty-foot lot beneath the shadow of thechurch. 

"It's mighty little, " said he. "I'll have to go out in the hall tochange my collar, and we couldn't have more than two people at a time tocall on us. "

"It's a dear!" said she, "and I'm not so e-nor-mous myself, whatever YOUmay be. "

They ended by renting the little house, and Carroll took charge of itdelightedly. What difficulties she overcame, and what laughable andcryable mistakes she made only those who have encountered a likesituation could realise. She learned fast, however, and took a realpride in her tiny box of a home. A piano was, of course, out of thequestion, but the great golden harp occupied one corner, or ratherone side, of the parlour. Standing thus enshrouded in its covering, itrather resembled an august and tremendous veiled deity. To Carroll'sgreat delight, Orde used solemnly to go down on all fours and knockhis forehead thrice on the floor before it when he entered the houseat evening. When the very cold weather came and they had to light thebase-burner stove, which Orde stoutly maintained occupied all the otherhalf of the parlour, the harp's delicate constitution necessitated itsstanding in the hall. Nevertheless, Carroll had great comfort from it. While Orde was away at the office, she whispered through its mellowstrings her great happiness, the dreams for her young motherhood whichwould come in the summer, the vague and lingering pain over the haplessbut beloved ones she had left behind her in her other life. Then shearose refreshed, and went about the simple duties of her tiny domain. 

The winter was severe. All the world was white. The piles of snow alongthe sidewalks grew until Carroll could hardly look over them. Greatfierce winds swept in from the lake. Sometimes Orde and his wife drovetwo miles to the top of the sand hills, where first they had met in thistheir present home, and looked out beyond the tumbled shore ice to thesteel-gray, angry waters. The wind pricked their faces, and, goinghome, the sleigh-bells jingled, the snowballs from the horses' hoofs hitagainst the dash, the cold air seared the inside of their nostrils. WhenOrde helped Carroll from beneath the warm buffalo robes, she held up tohim a face glowing with colour, framed in the soft fluffy fur of a hood. 

"You darling!" he cried, and stooped to kiss her smooth, cold cheek. 

When he had returned from the stable around the corner, he found the litlamp throwing its modified light and shade over the little round table. He shook down the base-burner vigorously, thrust several billets of woodin its door, and turned to meet her eyes across the table. 

"Kind of fun being married, isn't it?" said he. 

"Kind of, " she admitted, nodding gravely. 

The business of the firm was by now about in shape. All the boomarrangements had been made; the two tugs were in the water and theirmachinery installed; supplies and equipments were stored away; theforemen of the crews engaged, and the crews themselves pretty wellpicked out. Only there needed to build the wanigan, and to cart in thesupplies for the upper river works before the spring break-up and thealmost complete disappearance of the roads. Therefore, Orde had the goodfortune of unusual leisure to enjoy these first months with hisbride. They entered together the Unexplored Country, and found it morewonderful than they had dreamed. Almost before they knew it, January andFebruary had flown. 

"We must pack up, sweetheart, " said Orde. 

"It's only yesterday that we came, " she cried regretfully. 

They took the train for Redding, were installed in the gable room, explored together for three days the delights of the old-fashionedhouse, the spicy joys of Grandma Orde's and Amanda's cookery, the almostadoring adulation of the old folks. Then Orde packed his "turkey, "assumed his woods clothes, and marched off down the street carrying hisbag on his back. 

"He looks like an old tramp in that rig, " said Grandma Orde, closing thestorm door. 

"He looks like a conqueror of wildernesses!" cried Carroll, strainingher eyes after his vanishing figure. Suddenly she darted after him, calling in her high, bird-like tones. He turned and came back to her. She clasped him by the shoulders, reluctant to let him go. 

"Good-bye, " she said at last. "You'll take better care of my sweetheartthan you ever did of Jack Orde, won't you, dear?"

XXII

Orde had reconnoitred the river as a general reconnoitres hisantagonist, and had made his dispositions as the general disposes of hisarmy, his commissary, his reserves. At this point five men could keepthe river clear; at that rapid it would require twenty; there a dozenwould suffice for ordinary contingencies, and yet an emergency mightcall for thirty--those thirty must not be beyond reach. In his mind'seye he apportioned the sections of the upper river. Among the remoterwildernesses every section must have its driving camp. The crews ofeach, whether few or many, would be expected to keep clear and runningtheir own "beats" on the river. As far as the rear crew should overtakethese divisions, either it would absorb them or the members of themwould be thrown forward beyond the lowermost beat, to take charge of anew division down stream. When the settled farm country or the littletowns were reached, many of the driving camps would become unnecessary;the men could be boarded out at farms lying in their beats. A continualadvance would progress toward the Lake, the drive crews passing andrepassing each other like pigeons in the sown fields. Each of thesesections would be in charge of a foreman, whose responsibility ceasedwith the delivery of the logs to the men next below. A walking bosswould trudge continually the river trail, or ride the logs down stream, holding the correlation of these many units. Orde himself would drive upand down the river, overseeing the whole plan of campaign, throwing thecamps forward, concentrating his forces here, spreading them elsewhere, keeping accurately in mind the entire situation so that he could saywith full confidence: "Open Dam Number One for three hours at nineo'clock; Dam Number Two for two hours and a half at ten thirty, " and soon down the line; sure that the flood waters thus released would arriveat the right moment, would supplement each other, and would so spacethemselves as to accomplish the most work with the least waste. In thatone point more than in any other showed the expert. The water was hisammunition, a definite and limited quantity of it. To "get the logs outwith the water" was the last word of praise to be said for the riverdriver. The more logs, the greater the glory. 

Thus it can readily be seen, this matter was rather a campaign than amere labour, requiring the men, the munitions, the organisation, thetactical ability, the strategy, the resourcefulness, the boldness, andthe executive genius of a military commander. 

To all these things, and to the distribution of supplies and implementsamong the various camps, Orde had attended. The wanigan for the rearcrew was built. The foremen and walking boss had been picked out. Everything was in readiness. Orde was satisfied with the situationexcept that he found himself rather short-handed. He had counted onthree hundred men for his crews, but scrape and scratch as he would, hewas unable to gather over two hundred and fifty. This matter was notso serious, however, as later, when the woods camps should break up, hewould be able to pick up more workmen. 

"They won't be rivermen like my old crew, though, " said Orde regretfullyto Tom North, the walking boss. "I'd like to steal a few from some ofthose Muskegon outfits. "

Until the logs should be well adrift, Orde had resolved to boss the rearcrew himself. 

As the rear was naturally the farthest up stream, Orde had taken alsothe contract to break the rollways belonging to Carlin, which in theseason's work would be piled up on the bank. Thus he could get to workimmediately at the break-up, and without waiting for some one else. Theseven or eight million feet of lumber comprised in Carlin's drive wouldkeep the men below busy until the other owners, farther down and up thetributaries, should also have put their season's cut afloat. 

The ice went out early, to Orde's satisfaction. As soon as the riverran clear in its lower reaches he took his rear crew in to Carlin'srollways. 

This crew was forty in number, and had been picked from the best--ahard-bitten, tough band of veterans, weather beaten, scarred in numerousfights or by the backwoods scourge of small-pox, compact, muscular, fearless, loyal, cynically aloof from those not of their cult, out-spoken and free to criticise--in short, men to do great things underthe strong leader, and to mutiny at the end of three days under theweak. They piled off the train at Sawyer's, stamped their feet on theboard platform of the station, shouldered their "turkeys, " and straggledoff down the tote-road. It was an eighteen-mile walk in. The ground hadloosened its frost. The footing was ankle-deep in mud and snow-water. 

Next morning, bright and early, the breaking of the rollways began. During the winter the logs had been hauled down ice roads to the river, where they were "banked" in piles twenty, and even thirty, feet inheight. The bed of the stream itself was filled with them for a mile, save in a narrow channel left down through the middle to allow for someflow of water; the banks were piled with them, side on, ready to rolldown at the urging of the men. 

First of all, the entire crew set itself, by means of its peavies, torolling the lower logs into the current, where they were rapidly borneaway. As the waters were now at flood, this was a quick and easy labour. Occasionally some tiers would be stuck together by ice, in which caseconsiderable prying and heaving was necessary in order to crack themapart. But forty men, all busily at work, soon had the river full. Ordedetailed some six or eight to drop below in order that the river mightrun clear to the next section, where the next crew would take up thetask. These men, quite simply, walked to the edges of the rollway, rolled a log apiece into the water, stepped aboard, leaned against theirpeavies, and were swept away by the swift current. The logs on whichthey stood whirled in the eddies, caromed against other timbers, slackened speed, shot away; never did the riders alter their poses ofeasy equilibrium. From time to time one propelled his craft ashoreby hooking to and pushing against other logs. There he stood on someprominent point, leaning his chin contemplatively against the thickshaft of his peavy, watching the endless procession of the logs driftingby. Apparently he was idle, but in reality his eyes missed no shift ofthe ordered ranks. When a slight hitch or pause, a subtle change in thepattern of the brown carpet caught his attention, he sprang into life. Balancing his peavy across his body, he made his way by short dashesto the point of threatened congestion. There, working vigorously, sweptdown stream with the mass, he pulled, hauled, and heaved, forcing theheavy, reluctant timbers from the cohesion that threatened troublelater. Oblivious to his surroundings, he wrenched and pried desperately. The banks of the river drifted by. Point succeeded point, as thoughwithdrawn up stream by some invisible manipulator. The river appearedstationary, the banks in motion. Finally he heard at his elbow the voiceof the man stationed below him, who had run out from his own point. 

"Hullo, Bill, " he replied to this man, "you old slough hog! Tie intothis this!"

"All the time!" agreed Bill cheerfully. 

In a few moments the danger was averted, the logs ran free. The rivermenthereupon made their uncertain way back to shore, where they took theriver trail up stream again to their respective posts. 

At noon they ate lunches they had brought with them in little canvasbags, snatched before they left the rollways from a supply handy by thecook. In the meantime the main crew were squatting in the lea of thebrush, devouring a hot meal which had been carried to them in woodenboxes strapped to the backs of the chore boys. Down the river and up itstributaries other crews, both in the employ of Newmark and Orde and ofothers, were also pausing from their cold and dangerous toil. The river, refreshed after its long winter, bent its mighty back to the greatannual burden laid upon it. 

By the end of the second day the logs actually in the bed of the streamhad been shaken loose, and a large proportion of them had floatedentirely from sight. It now became necessary to break down the rollwayspiled along the tops of the banks. 

The evening of this day, however, Orde received a visit from JimDenning, the foreman of the next section below, bringing with himCharlie, the cook of Daly's last year's drive. Leaving him by the largerfire, Jim Denning drew his principal one side. 

"This fellow drifted in to-night two days late after a drunk, and hetells an almighty queer story, " said he. "He says a crew of bad menfrom the Saginaw, sixty strong, have been sent in by Heinzman. He saysHeinzman hired them to come over not to work, but just to fight andannoy us. "

"That so?" said Orde. "Well, where are they?"

"Don't know. But he sticks by his story, and tells it pretty straight. "

"Bring him over, and let's hear it, " said Orde. 

"Hullo, Charlie!" he greeted the cook when the latter stood before him. "What's this yarn Jim's telling me?"

"It's straight, Mr. Orde, " said the cook. "There's a big crew brought infrom the Saginaw Waters to do you up. They're supposed to be over hereto run his drive, but really they're goin' to fight and raise hell. Forwhy would he want sixty men to break out them little rollways of his'nup at the headwaters?"

"Is that where they've gone?" asked Orde like a flash. 

"Yes, sir. And he only owns a 'forty' up there, and it ain't more'n halfcut, anyway. "

"I didn't know he owned any. "

"Yes, sir. He bought that little Johnson piece last winter. I beenworkin' up there with a little two-horse crew since January. We didn'tput up more'n a couple hundred thousand. "

"Is he breaking out his rollways below?" Orde asked Denning. 

"No, sir, " struck in Charlie, "he ain't. "

"How do you happen to be so wise?" inquired Orde, "Seems to me you knowabout as much as old man Solomon. "

"Well, " explained Charlie, "you see it's like this. When I got back fromthe woods last week, I just sort of happened into McNeill's place. Iwasn't drinkin' a drop!" he cried virtuously, in answer to Orde's smile. 

"Of course not, " said Orde. "I was just thinking of the last time wewere in there together. "

"That's just it!" cried Charlie. "They was always sore at you aboutthat. Well, I was lyin' on one of those there benches back of the'Merican flags in the dance hall 'cause I was very sleepy, when in blewold man Heinzman and McNeill himself. I just lay low for black ducksand heard their talk. They took a look around, but didn't see no one, sothey opened her up wide. "

"What did you hear?" asked Orde. 

"Well, McNeill he agreed to get a gang of bad ones from the Saginaw torun in on the river, and I heard Heinzman tell him to send 'em in toheadwaters. And McNeill said, 'That's all right about the cash, Mr. Heinzman, but I been figgerin' on gettin' even with Orde for somemyself. '"

"Is that all?" inquired Orde. 

"That's about all, " confessed Charlie. 

"How do you know he didn't hire them to carry down his drive for him?He'd need sixty men for his lower rollways, and maybe they weren't allto go to headwaters?" asked Orde by way of testing Charlie's beliefs. 

"He's payin' them four dollars a day, " replied Charlie simply. "Now, who'd pay that fer just river work?"

Orde nodded at Jim Denning. 

"Hold on, Charlie, " said he. "Why are you giving all this away if youwere working for Heinzman?"

"I'm working for you now, " replied Charlie with dignity. "And, besides, you helped me out once yourself. "

"I guess it's a straight tip all right, " said Orde to Denning, when thecook had resumed his place by the fire. 

"That's what I thought. That's why I brought him up. "

"If that crew's been sent in there, it means only one thing at that endof the line, " said Orde. 

"Sure. They're sent up to waste out the water in the reservoir and hangthis end of the drive, " replied Denning. 

"Correct, " said Orde. "The old skunk knows his own rollways are so fardown stream that he's safe, flood water or no flood water. "

A pause ensued, during which the two smoked vigorously. 

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Denning at last. 

"What would you do?" countered Orde. 

"Well, " said Denning slowly, and with a certain grim joy, "I don't betthose Saginaw river-pigs are any more two-fisted than the boys on thisriver. I'd go up and clean 'em out. "

"Won't do, " negatived Orde briefly. "In the first place, as you knowvery well, we're short-handed now, and we can't spare the men from thework. In the second place, we'd hang up sure, then; to go up in thatwilderness, fifty miles from civilisation, would mean a first-class rowof too big a size to handle. Won't do!"

"Suppose you get a lawyer, " suggested Denning sarcastically. 

Orde laughed with great good-humour

"Where'd our water be by the time he got an injunction for us?"

He fell into a brown study, during which his pipe went out. 

"Jim, " he said finally, "it isn't a fair game. I don't know what to do. Delay will hang us; taking men off the work will hang us. I've just gotto go tip there myself and see what can be done by talking to them. "

"Talking to them!" Denning snorted. "You might as well whistle down thedraught-pipe of hell! If they're just up there for a row, there'll bewhisky in camp; and you can bet McNeill's got some of 'em instructed onYOUR account. They'll kill you, sure!"

"I agree with you it's risky, " replied Orde. "I'm scared; I'm willing toadmit it. But I don't see what else to do. Of course he's got no rights, but what the hell good does that do us after our water is gone? And Jim, my son, if we hang this drive, I'll be buried so deep I never will digout. No; I've got to go. You can stay up here in charge of the rearuntil I get back. Send word by Charlie who's to boss your division whileyou're gone. "

XXIII

Orde tramped back to Sawyer's early next morning, hitched into the lightbuckboard the excellent team with which later, when the drive shouldspread out, he would make his longest jumps, and drove to head-waters. He arrived in sight of the dam about three o'clock. At the edge of theclearing he pulled up to survey the scene. 

A group of three small log-cabins marked the Johnson, and later theHeinzman, camp. From the chimneys a smoke arose. Twenty or thirtyrivermen lounged about the sunny side of the largest structure. Theyhad evidently just arrived, for some of their "turkeys" were still piledoutside the door. Orde clucked to his horses, and the spidery wheels ofthe buckboard swung lightly over the wet hummocks of the clearing, tocome to a stop opposite the men. Orde leaned forward against his knees. 

"Hullo, boys!" said he cheerfully. 

No one replied, though two or three nodded surlily. Orde looked themover with some interest. 

They were a dirty, unkempt, unshaven, hard-looking lot, with bloodshoteyes, a flicker of the dare-devil in expression, beyond the first youth, hardened into an enduring toughness of fibre--bad men from the Saginaw, in truth, and, unless Orde was mistaken, men just off a drunk, andtherefore especially dangerous; men eager to fight at the drop ofthe hat, or sooner, to be accommodating, and ready to employ intheir assaults all the formidable and terrifying weapons of therough-and-tumble; reckless, hard, irreverrent, blasphemous, to be gainedover by no words, fair or foul; absolutely scornful of any and allinstitutions imposed on them by any other but the few men whom theyacknowledged as their leaders. And to master these men's respectthere needed either superlative strength, superlative recklessness, orsuperlative skill. 

"Who's your boss?" asked Orde. 

"The Rough Red, " growled one of the men without moving. 

Orde had heard of this man, of his personality and his deeds. LikeSilver Jack of the Muskegon, his exploits had been celebrated in song. Abig, broad-faced man, with a red beard, they had told him, with little, flickering eyes, a huge voice that bellowed through the woods in atorrent of commands and imprecations, strong as a bull, and savage asa wild beast. A hint of his quality will suffice from the many storiescirculated about him. It was said that while jobbing for Morrison andDaly, in some of that firm's Saginaw Valley holdings, the Rough Red haddiscovered that a horse had gone lame. He called the driver of that teambefore him, seized an iron starting bar, and with it broke the man'sleg. "Try th' lameness yourself, Barney Mallan, " said he. To appeal tothe charity of such a man would be utterly useless. Orde saw this point. He picked up his reins and spoke to his team. 

But before the horses had taken three steps, a huge riverman had plantedhimself squarely in the way. The others rising, slowly surrounded therig. 

"I don't know what you're up here for, " growled the man at the horses'heads, "but you wanted to see the boss, and I guess you'd better seehim. "

"I intend to see him, " said Orde sharply. "Get out of the way and let mehitch my team. "

He drove deliberately ahead, forcing the man to step aside, and stoppedhis horses by a stub. He tied them there and descended, to lean his backalso against the log walls of the little house. 

After a few moments a huge form appeared above the river bank at someforty rods' distance. 

"Yonder he comes now, " vouchsafed the man nearest Orde. 

Orde made out the great square figure of the boss, his soft hat, hisflaming red beard, his dingy mackinaw coat, his dingy black-and-whitechecked flannel shirt, his dingy blue trousers tucked into high socks, and, instead of driving boots, his ordinary lumberman's rubbers. As aspot of colour, he wore a flaming red knit sash, with tassels. Beforehe had approached near enough to be plainly distinguishable, he beganto bellow at the men, commanding them, with a mighty array of oaths, to wake up and get the sluice-gate open. In a moment or so he haddisappeared behind some bushes that intervened in his approach to thehouse. His course through them could be traced by the top of his cap, which just showed above them. In a moment he thrust through the brushand stood before Orde. 

For a moment he stared at the young man, and then, with a wild Irishyell, leaped upon him. Orde, caught unawares and in an awkward position, was hardly able even to struggle against the gigantic riverman. Indeed, before he had recovered his faculties to the point of offeringdetermined resistance, he was pinned back against the wall by hisshoulders, and the Rough Red's face was within two feet of his own. 

"And how are ye, ye ould darlint?" shouted the latter, with a roll ofoaths. 

"Why, Jimmy Bourke!" cried Orde, and burst into a laugh. 

The Rough Red jerked him to his feet, delivered a bear hug that nearlycrushed his ribs, and pounded him mightily on the back. 

"You ould snoozer!" he bellowed. "Where the blankety blank in blank didyou come from? Byes, " he shouted to the men, "it's me ould boss on th'Au Sable six year back--that time, ye mind, whin we had th' ice jam!Glory be! but I'm glad to see ye!"

Orde was still laughing. 

"I didn't know you'd turned into the Rough Red, Jimmy, " said he. "Idon't believe we were either of us old enough for whiskers then, werewe?"

The Rough Red grinned. 

"Thrue for ye!" said he. "And what have ye been doing all these years?"

"That's just it, Jimmy, " said Orde, drawing the giant one side, out ofear-shot. "All my eggs are in one basket, and it's a mean trick of youto hire out for filthy lucre to kick that basket. "

"What do ye mane?" asked the Rough Red, fixing his twinkling little eyeson Orde. 

"You don't mean to tell me, " countered Orde, glancing down at theother's rubber-shod feet, "that this crew has been sent up here just tobreak out those measly little rollways?"

"Thim?" said the Rough Red. "Thim? Hell, NO! Thim's my bodyguard. Theycan lick their weight in wild cats, and I'd loike well to see the gangof highbankers that infists this river thry to pry thim out. We weren'tsint here to wurrk; we were sint here to foight. "

"Fight? Why?" asked Orde. 

"Oh, I dunno, " replied the Rough Red easily. "Me boss and the blank of ablank blanked blank that's attimptin' to droive this river has some sortof a row. "

"Jimmy, " said Orde, "didn't you know that I am the gentleman lastmentioned?"

"What!"

"I'm driving this river, and that's my dam-keeper you've got hid awaysomewhere here, and that's my water you're planning to waste!"

"What?" repeated the Rough Red, but in a different tone of voice. 

"That's right, " said Orde. 

In a tone of vast astonishment, the Rough Red mentioned his probabledeserts in the future life. 

"Luk here, Jack, " said he after a moment, "here's a crew of white-waterbirlers that ye can't beat nowheres. What do you want us to do? We'renow gettin' four dollars a day AN' board from that murderin' ouldvillain, Heinzman, SO WE CAN AFFORD TO WURRK FOR YOU CHEAP. "

Orde hesitated. 

"Oh, please do now, darlint!" wheedled the Rough Red, his little eyesagleam with mischief. "Sind us some oakum and pitch and we'll caulk yurewanigan for ye. Or maybe some more peavies, and we'll hilp ye on yurerollways. And till us, afore ye go, how ye want this dam, and that's theway she'll be. Come, now, dear! and ain't ye short-handed now?"

Orde slapped his knee and laughed. 

"This is sure one hell of a joke!" he cried. 

"And ain't it now?" said the Rough Red, smiling with as muchingratiation as he was able. 

"I'll take you boys on, " said Orde at last, "at the usual wages--dollarand a half for the jam, three for the rear. I doubt if you'll see muchof Heinzman's money when this leaks out. "

XXIV

Thus Orde, by the sheer good luck that sometimes favours men engaged inlarge enterprises, not only frustrated a plan likely to bring failure tohis interests, but filled up his crews. It may be remarked here, as wellas later, that the "terrors of the Saginaw" stayed with the drive toits finish, and proved reliable and tractable in every particular. Ordescattered them judiciously, so there was no friction with the local men. The Rough Red he retained on the rear. 

Here the breaking of the rollways had reached a stage more exciting bothto onlooker and participant than the mere opening of the river channel. Huge stacks of logs piled sidewise to the bank lined the stream formiles. When the lowermost log on the river side was teased and priedout, the upper tiers were apt to cascade down with a roar, a crash, anda splash. The man who had done the prying had to be very quick-eyed, very cool, and very agile to avoid being buried under the tons of timberthat rushed down on him. Only the most reliable men were permitted atthis initial breaking down. Afterwards the crew rolled in what logsremained. 

The Rough Red's enormous strength, dare-devil spirit, and nimbleness ofbody made him invaluable at this dangerous work. Orde, too, often took ahand in some of the more ticklish situations. In old days, before hehad attained the position of responsibility that raised the value of histime beyond manual work, he had been one of the best men on the river atbreaking bank rollways. A slim, graceful, handsome boy of twenty, knownas "Rollway Charlie, " also distinguished himself by the quickness andcertainty of his work. Often the men standing near lost sight of himentirely in the spray, the confusion, the blur of the breaking rollways, until it seemed certain he must have perished. Nevertheless, always heappeared at right or left, sometimes even on a log astream, nonchalant, smiling, escaped easily from the destructive power he had loosed. Oncein the stream the logs ran their appointed course, watched by the menwho herded them on their way. And below, from the tributaries, from theother rollways a never-ending procession of recruits joined this greatbrown army on its way to the lake, until for miles and miles the riverwas almost a solid mass of logs. 

The crews on the various beats now had their hands full to keep the logsrunning. The slightest check at any one point meant a jam, for therewas no way of stopping the unending procession. The logs behindfloated gently against the obstruction and came to rest. The brown massthickened. As far as the eye could reach the surface of the water wasconcealed. And then, as the slow pressure developed from the threeor four miles of logs forced against each other by the pushing of thecurrent, the breast of the jam began to rise. Timbers up-ended, crossed, interlocked, slid one over the other, mounted higher and higher in theformidable game of jack-straws the loss of which spelled death to theplayers. 

Immediately, and with feverish activity, the men nearest at handattacked the work. Logs on top they tumbled and rolled into the currentbelow. Men beneath the breast tugged and pried in search of the key logscausing all the trouble. Others "flattened out the wings, " hoping to geta "draw" around the ends. As the stoppage of the drive indicated tothe men up and down stream that a jam had formed, they gathered at thescene--those from above over the logs, those from below up the rivertrail. 

Rarely, unless in case of unusual complications, did it take more thana few hours at most to break the jam. The breast of it went out with arush. More slowly the wings sucked in. Reluctantly the mass floating onthe surface for miles up stream stirred, silently moved forward. For afew minutes it was necessary to watch carefully until the flow onwardsteadied itself, until the congestion had spaced and ordered as before. Then the men moved back to their posts; the drive was resumed. At nightthe river was necessarily left to its own devices. Rivermen, with thetouch of superstition inseparably connected with such affairs, believeimplicitly that "logs run free at night. " Certainly, though it mightbe expected that each morning would reveal a big jam to break, such wasrarely the case. The logs had usually stopped, to be sure, but generallyin so peaceful a situation as easily to be started on by a few minutes'work. Probably this was because they tended to come to rest in the slow, still reaches of the river, through which, in daytime, they would beurged by the rivermen. 

Jams on the river, contrary to general belief, are of very commonoccurrence. Throughout the length of the drive there were probablythree or four hang-ups a day. Each of these had to be broken, and in thebreaking was danger. The smallest misstep, the least slowness in readingthe signs of the break, the slightest lack of promptness in acting onthe hint or of agility in leaping from one to the other of the plungingtimbers, the faintest flicker from rigid attention to the antagonistcrouching on the spring, would mean instant death to the delinquent. Thus it was literally true that each one of these men was called uponalmost daily to wager his personal skill against his destruction. 

In the meantime the rear was "sacking" its way as fast as possible, moving camp with the wanigan whenever necessary, working very hard andvery cold and very long. In its work, however, beyond the breaking ofthe rollways, was little of the spectacular. 

Orde, after the rear was well started, patrolled the length of thedrive in his light buckboard. He had a first-class team of younghorses--high-spirited, somewhat fractious, but capable on a pinchof their hundred miles in a day. He handled them well over the roughcorduroys and swamp roads. From jam to rear and back again he travelled, pausing on the river banks to converse earnestly with one of theforemen, surveying the situation with the bird's-eye view of thegeneral. At times he remained at one camp for several days watching thetrend of the work. The improvements made during the preceding summergave him the greatest satisfaction, especially the apron at the falls. 

"We'd have had a dozen bad jams here before now with all these logs inthe river, " said he to Tim Nolan, who was in charge of that beat. 

"And as it is, " said Tim, "we've had but the one little wing jam. "

The piers to define the channel along certain shallows also saved therear crew much labour in the matter of stranded logs. Everything wasvery satisfactory. Even old man Reed held to his chastened attitude, and made no trouble. In fact, he seemed glad to turn an honest penny byboarding the small crew in charge of sluicing the logs. 

No trouble was experienced until Heinzman's rollways were reached. Here Orde had, as he had promised his partner, boomed a free channel toprevent Heinzman from filling up the entire river-bed with his rollways. When the jam of the drive had descended the river as far as this, Ordefound that Heinzman had not yet begun to break out. Hardly had Orde'sfirst crew passed, however, when Heinzman's men began to break down thelogs into the drive. Long before the rear had caught up, all Heinzman'sdrive was in the water, inextricably mingled with the sixty or eightymillion feet Orde had in charge. 

The situation was plain. All Heinzman now had to do was to retain asmall crew, which should follow after the rear in order to sack whatlogs the latter should leave stranded. This amounted practically tonothing. As it was impossible in so great a mass of timbers, and in thehaste of a pressing labour, to distinguish or discriminate againstany single brand, Heinzman was in a fair way to get his logs sent downstream with practically no expense. 

"Vell, my boy, " remarked the German quite frankly to Orde as they met onthe road one day, "looks like I got you dis time, eh?"

Orde laughed, also with entire good-humour. 

"If you mean your logs are going down with ours, why I guess you have. But you paste this in your hat: you're going to keep awful busy, andit's going to cost you something yet to get 'em down. "

To Newmark, on one of his occasional visits to the camps, Orde detailedthe situation. 

"It doesn't amount to much, " said he, "except that it complicatesmatters. We'll make him scratch gravel, if we have to sit up nights andwork overtime to do it. We can't injure him or leave his logs, but wecan annoy him a lot. "

The state of affairs was perfectly well known to the men, and the entireriver entered into the spirit of the contest. The drivers kept a sharplookout for "H" logs, and whenever possible thrust them aside intoeddies and backwaters. This, of course, merely made work for the sackersHeinzman had left above the rear. Soon they were in charge of a veryfair little drive of their own. Their lot was not enviable. Indeed, onlythe pressure of work prevented some of the more aggressive of Orde'srear--among whom could be numbered the Rough Red--from going back and"cleaning out" this impertinent band of hangers-on. One day two of thelatter, conducting the jam of the miniature drive astern, came withinreach of the Rough Red. The latter had lingered in hopes of rescuing hispeavy, which had gone overboard. To lose one's peavy is, among rivermen, the most mortifying disgrace. Consequently, the Rough Red was in a fitmood for trouble. He attacked the two single-handed. A desperate battleensued, which lasted upward of an hour. The two rivermen punched, kicked, and battered the Rough Red in a manner to tear his clothes, deprive him to some extent of red whiskers, bloody his face, cut hisshoulder, and knock loose two teeth. The Rough Red, more than the equalof either man singly, had reciprocated in kind. Orde, driving in towardthe rear from a detour to avoid a swamp, heard, and descended from hisbuckboard. Tying his horses to trees, he made his way through the brushto the scene of conflict. So winded and wearied were the belligerentsby now that he had no difficulty in separating them. He surveyed theirwrecks with a sardonic half smile. 

"I call this a draw, " said he finally. His attitude became threateningas the two up-river men, recovering somewhat, showed ugly symptoms. "Git!" he commanded. "Scat! I guess you don't know me. I'm Jack Orde. Jimmy and I together could do a dozen of you. " He menaced them until, muttering, they had turned away. 

"Well, Jimmy, " said he humorously, "you look as if you'd been runthrough a thrashing machine. "

"Those fellers make me sick!" growled the Rough Red. 

Orde looked him over again. 

"You look sick, " said he. 

When the buckboard drew into camp, Orde sent Bourke away to repairdamages while he called the cookee to help unpack several heavy boxesof hardware. They proved to contain about thirty small hatchets, wellsharpened, and each with a leather guard. When the rear crew had come inthat night, Orde distributed the hatchets. 

"Boys, " said he, "while you're on the work, I want you all to keep awatch-out for these "H" logs, and whenever you strike one I want you toblaze it plainly, so there won't be any mistake about it. "

"What for?" asked one of the Saginaw men as he received his hatchet. 

But the riverman who squatted next nudged him with his elbow. 

"The less questions you ask Jack, the more answers you'll get. Just dowhat you're told to on this river and you'll see fun sure. "

Three days later the rear crew ran into the head of the pond aboveReed's dam. To every one's surprise, Orde called a halt on the work andannounced a holiday. 

Now, holidays are unknown on drive. Barely is time allowed for eatingand sleeping. Nevertheless, all that day the men lay about in completeidleness, smoking, talking, sleeping in the warm sun. The river, silenced by the closed sluice-gates, slept also. The pond filled withlogs. From above, the current, aided by a fair wind, was driving downstill other logs--the forerunners of the little drive astern. At sightof these, some of the men grumbled. "We're losin' what we made, " saidthey. "We left them logs, and sorted 'em out once already. "

Orde sent a couple of axe-men to blaze the newcomers. A little beforesundown he ordered the sluice-gates of the dam opened. 

"Night work, " said the men to one another. They knew, of course, thatin sluicing logs, the gate must be open a couple of hours before thesluicing begins in order to fill the river-bed below. Logs run aheadfaster than the water spreads. 

Sure enough, after supper Orde suddenly appeared among them, thewell-known devil of mischief dancing in his eyes and broadening hisgood-natured face. 

"Get organised, boys, " said he briskly. "We've got to get this pond allsluiced before morning, and there's enough of us here to hustle it rightalong. "

The men took their places. Orde moved here and there, giving hisdirections. 

"Sluice through everything but the "H" logs, " he commanded. "Work themoff to the left and leave them. "

Twilight, then dark, fell. After a few moments the moon, then just pastits full, rose behind the new-budding trees. The sluicing, under theimpetus of a big crew, went rapidly. 

"I bet there's mighty near a million an hour going through there, "speculated Orde, watching the smooth, swift, but burdened waters of thechute. 

And in this work the men distinguished easily the new white blaze-markson Heinzman's logs; so they were able without hesitation to shunt themone side into the smoother water, as Orde had commanded. 

About two o'clock the last log shot through. 

"Now, boys, " said Orde, "tear out the booms. "

The chute to the dam was approached, as has been earlier explained, bytwo rows of booms arranged in a V, or funnel, the apex of which emptiedinto the sluice-way, and the wide, projecting arms of which embracedthe width of the stream. The logs, floating down the pond, were thusconcentrated toward the sluice. Also, the rivermen, walking back andforth the length of the booms, were able easily to keep the drivemoving. 

Now, however, Orde unchained these boom logs. The men pushed themashore. There as many as could find room on either side the boom-polesclamped in their peavies, and, using these implements as handles, carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybodytramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde waslike a mischievous boy at a school prank. When the last timber had beenconcealed, he lifted up his deep voice in a roar of joy, in which thecrew joined. 

"Now let's turn in for a little sleep, " said be. 

This situation, perhaps a little cloudy in the reader's mind, wouldhave cleared could he have looked out over the dam pond the followingmorning. The blazed logs belonging to Heinzman, drifting slowly, hadsucked down into the corner toward the power canal where, caught againstthe grating, they had jammed. These logs would have to be floatedsingly, and pushed one by one against the current across the pond andinto the influence of the sluice-gate. Some of them would be hard tocome at. 

"I guess that will keep them busy for a day or two, " commented Orde, ashe followed the rear down to where it was sacking below the dam. 

This, as Orde had said, would be sufficiently annoying to Heinzman, but would have little real effect on the main issue, which was that theGerman was getting down his logs with a crew of less than a dozen men. Nevertheless, Orde, in a vast spirit of fun, took delight in inventingand executing practical jokes of the general sort just described. Forinstance, at one spot where he had boomed the deeper channel from therocks on either side, he shunted as many of Heinzman's logs as came byhandily through an opening he had made in the booms. There they groundedon the shallows--more work for the men following. Many of the logs incharge of the latter, however, catching the free current, overtook therear, so that the number of the "H" logs in the drive was not materiallydiminished. 

At first, as has been hinted, these various tactics had little effect. One day, however, the chore boy, who had been over to Spruce Rapidsafter mail, reported that an additional crew of twenty had been sent into Heinzman's drive. This was gratifying. 

"We're making him scratch gravel, boys, anyway, " said Orde. 

The men entered into the spirit of the thing. In fact, their enthusiasmwas almost too exuberant. Orde had constantly to negative new andingenious schemes. 

"No, boys, " said he, "I want to keep on the right side of the law. Wemay need it later. "

Meanwhile the entire length of the river was busy and excited. Heinzman's logs were all blazed inside a week. The men passed thehatchets along the line, and slim chance did a marked log have ofrescue once the poor thing fell into difficulties. With the strangeand interesting tendency rivermen and woodsmen have of personifying theelements of their daily work, the men addressed the helpless timbers intones of contempt. 

"Thought you'd ride that rock, you ---- ---- ----, " said they, "and gotleft, did you? Well, lie there and be ---- to you!"

And if chance offered, and time was not pressing, the riverman wouldgive his helpless victim a jerk or so into a more difficult position. Times of rising water--when the sluice-gates above had been opened--werethe most prolific of opportunities. Logs rarely jam on rising water, for the simple reason that constantly the surface area of the riveris increasing, thus tending to separate the logs. On the other hand, falling water, tending to crowd the drive closer together, is especiallyprolific of trouble. Therefore, on flood water the watchers scatteredalong the stretches of the river had little to do--save strandHeinzman's logs for him. And when flood water had passed, some of thoselogs were certainly high and dry. 

Up to a certain point this was all very well. Orde took pains not tocountenance it officially, and caused word to be passed about, thatwhile he did not expect his men to help drive Heinzman's logs, they mustnot go out of their way to strand them. 

"If things get too bad, he'll have spies down here to collect evidenceon us, " said Orde, "and he'll jug some of us for interference with hisproperty. We don't own the river. "

"How about them booms?" asked the Rough Red. 

"I did own them, " explained Orde, "and I had a right to take them upwhen I had finished with them. "

This hint was enough. The men did not cease from a labour that tickledthem mightily, but they adopted a code of signals. Strangers were notuncommon. Spectators came out often from the little towns and fromthe farms round-about. When one of these appeared the riverman nearestraised a long falsetto cry. This was taken up by his next neighbour andpassed on. In a few minutes all that section of the drive knew that itwould be wise to "lie low. " And inside of two weeks Orde had the greatsatisfaction of learning that Heinzman was working--and working hard--acrew of fifty men. 

"A pretty fair crew, even if he was taking out his whole drive, "commented Orde. 

The gods of luck seemed to be with the new enterprise. Although Ordehad, of course, taken the utmost pains to foresee every contingencypossible to guard against, nevertheless, as always when dealing withNature's larger forces, he anticipated some of those gigantic obstacleswhich continually render uncertain wilderness work. Nothing of the kindhappened. There formed none of the tremendous white-water jams that pileup several million feet of logs, tax every resource of men, horses, andexplosives, and require a week or so to break. No men were killed, andonly two injured. No unexpected floods swept away works on which thedrive depended. The water held out to carry the last stick of timberover the shallowest rapids. Weather conditions were phenomenal--andperfect. All up and down the river the work went with that vim and dashthat is in itself an assurance of success. The Heinzman affair, whichunder auspices of evil augury might have become a serious menace to thesuccess of the young undertaking, now served merely to add a spiceof humour to the situation. Among the men gained currency ahalf-affectionate belief in "Orde's luck. "

After this happy fashion the drive went, until at last it entered thebroad, deep, and navigable stretches of the river from Redding to thelake. Here, barring the accident of an extraordinary flood, the troubleswere over. On the broad, placid bosom of the stream the logs wouldfloat. A crew, following, would do the easy work of sacking what logswould strand or eddy in the lazy current; would roll into the fasterwaters the component parts of what were by courtesy called jams, butwhich were in reality pile-ups of a few hundred logs on sand barsmid-stream; and in the growing tepid warmth of summer would tramppleasantly along the river trail. Of course, a dry year would makenecessary a larger crew and more labour; of course, a big flood mightsweep the logs past all defences into the lake for an irretrievableloss. But such floods come once in a century, and even the dryest of dryyears could not now hang the drive. As Orde sat in his buckboard, readyto go into town for a first glimpse of Carroll in more than two months, he gazed with an immense satisfaction over the broad river moving brownand glacier-like as though the logs that covered it were viscid andcomposed all its substance. The enterprise was practically assured ofsuccess. 

For a while now Orde was to have a breathing spell. A large numberof men were here laid off. The remainder, under the direction of JimDenning, would require little or no actual supervision. Until the jamshould have reached the distributing booms above Monrovia, the affairwas very simple. Before he left, however, he called Denning to him. 

"Jim, " said he, "I'll be down to see you through the sluiceways atRedding, of course. But now that you have a good, still stretch ofriver, I want you to have the boys let up on sacking out those "H" logs. And I want you to include in our drive all the Heinzman logs from aboveyou possibly can. If you can fix it, let their drive drift down intoours. 

"Then we'll have to drive their logs for them, " objected Denning. 

"Sure, " rejoined Orde, "but it's easy driving; and if that crew of hishasn't much to do, perhaps he'll lay most of them off here at Redding. "

Denning looked at his principal for a moment, then a slow grinoverspread his face. Without comment he turned back to camp, and Ordetook up his reins. 

XXV

"Oh, I'm so GLAD to get you back!" cried Carroll over and over again, as she clung to him. "I don't live while you're away. And every drop ofrain that patters on the roof chills my heart, because I think of it aschilling you; and every creak of this old house at night brings meup broad awake, because I hear in it the crash of those cruel greattimbers. Oh, oh, OH! I'm so glad to get you! You're the light of mylife; you're my whole life itself!"--she smiled at him from her perch onhis knee--"I'm silly, am I not?" she said. "Dear heart, don't leave meagain. "

"I've got to support an extravagant wife, you know, " Orde reminded hergravely. 

"I know, of course, " she breathed, bending lightly to him. "You haveyour work in the world to do, and I would not have it otherwise. It isgreat work--wonderful work--I've been asking questions. "

Orde laughed. 

"It's work, just like any other. And it's hard work, " said he. 

She shook her head at him slowly, a mysterious smile on her lips. Without explaining her thought, she slipped from his knee and glidedacross to the tall golden harp, which had been brought from Monrovia. The light and diaphanous silk of her loose peignoir floated about her, defining the maturing grace of her figure. Abruptly she struck a greatcrashing chord. 

Then, with an abandon of ecstasy she plunged into one of those wild andsea-blown saga-like rhapsodies of the Hungarians, full of the wind inrigging, the storm in the pines, of shrieking, vast forces hurtlingunchained through a resounding and infinite space, as though deep downin primeval nature the powers of the world had been loosed. Back andforth, here and there, erratic and swift and sudden as lightning thetheme played breathless. It fell. 

"What is that?" gasped Orde, surprised to find himself tense, his bloodrioting, his soul stirred. 

She ran to him to hide her face in his neck. 

"Oh, it's you, you, you!" she cried. 

He held her to him closely until her excitement had died. 

"Do you think it is good to get quite so nervous, sweetheart?" he askedgently, then. "Remember--"

"Oh, I do, I do!" she broke in earnestly. "Every moment of my waking andsleeping hours I remember him. Always I keep his little soul before meas a light on a shrine. But to-night--oh! to-night I could laugh andshout aloud like the people in the Bible, with clapping of hands. " Shesnuggled herself close to Orde with a little murmur of happiness. "Ithink of all the beautiful things, " she whispered, "and of the noblethings, and of the great things. He is going to be sturdy, like hisfather; a wonderful boy, a boy all of fire--"

"Like his mother, " said Orde. 

She smiled up at him. "I want him just like you, dear, " she pleaded. 

XXVI

Three days later the jam of the drive reached the dam at Redding. Orde took Carroll downtown in the buckboard. There a seat by thedam-watcher's little house was given her, back of the brick factorybuildings next the power canal, whence for hours she watched the slowonward movement of the sullen brown timbers, the smooth, polished-steelrush of the waters through the chute, the graceful certain movements ofthe rivermen. Some of the latter were brought up by Orde and introduced. They were very awkward, and somewhat embarrassed, but they all lookedher straight in the eye, and Carroll felt somehow that back of theirdiffidence they were quite dispassionately appraising her. After a fewgracious speeches on her part and monosyllabic responses on theirs, theyblundered away. In spite of the scant communication, these interviewsleft something of a friendly feeling on both sides. 

"I like your Jim Denning, " she told Orde; "he's a nice, clean-cutfellow. And Mr. Bourke, " she laughed. "Isn't he funny with his fiercered beard and his little eyes? But he simply adores you. "

Orde laughed at the idea of the Rough Red's adoring anybody. 

"It's so, " she insisted, "and I like him for it--only I wish he were alittle cleaner. "

She thought the feats of "log-riding" little less than wonderful, and you may be sure the knowledge of her presence did not discouragespectacular display. Finally, Johnny Challan, uttering a loud whoop, leaped aboard a log and went through the chute standing bolt upright. Bya marvel of agility, he kept his balance through the white-water below, and emerged finally into the lower waters still proudly upright, and dryabove the knees. 

Carroll had arisen, the better to see. 

"Why, " she cried aloud, "it's marvellous! Circus riding is nothing toit!"

"No, ma'am, " replied a gigantic riverman who was working near at hand, "that ain't nothin'. Ordinary, however, we travel that way on the river. At night we have the cookee pass us out each a goose-ha'r piller, andlay down for the night. "

Carroll looked at him in reproof. He grinned slowly. 

"Don't git worried about me, ma'am, " said he, "I'm hopeless. Fortwenty year now I been wearin' crape on my hat in memory of my departedvirtues. "

After the rear had dropped down river from Redding, Carroll and Ordereturned to their deserted little box of a house at Monrovia. 

Orde breathed deep of a new satisfaction in walking again the streets ofthis little sandy, sawdust-paved, shantyfied town, with its yellow hillsand its wide blue river and its glimpse of the lake far in the offing. It had never meant anything to him before. Now he enjoyed every brickand board of it; he trod the broken, aromatic shingles of the roadwaywith pleasure; he tramped up the broad stairs and down the dark hall ofthe block with anticipation; he breathed the compounded office odourof ledgers, cocoa matting, and old cigar smoke in a long, reminiscentwhiff; he took his seat at his roll-top desk, enchanted to be again inthese homely though familiar surroundings. 

"Hanged if I know what's struck me, " he mused. "Never experienced anyremarkable joy before in getting back to this sort of truck. "

Then, with a warm glow at the heart, the realisation was brought to him. This was home, and over yonder, under the shadow of the heaven-pointingspire, a slip of a girl was waiting for him. 

He tried to tell her this when next he saw her. 

"I felt that I ought to make you a little shrine, and burn candles toyou, the way the Catholics do--"

"To the Mater Dolorosa?" she mocked. 

He looked at her dark eyes so full of the sweetness of content, at hersensitive lips with the quaintly upturned corners, and he thought ofwhat her home life had been and of the real sorrow that even yet mustsmoulder somewhere down in the deeps of her being. 

"No, " said he slowly, "not that. I think my shrine will be dedicated toOur Lady of the Joyous Soul. "

The rest of the week Orde was absent up the river, superintending in ageneral way the latter progress of the drive, looking into the needsof the crews, arranging for supplies. The mills were all working now, busily cutting into the residue of last season's logs. Soon they wouldneed more. 

At the booms everything was in readiness to receive the jam. The longswing arm slanting across the river channel was attached to its winchwhich would operate it. When shut it would close the main channel andshunt into the booms the logs floating in the river. There, penned atlast by the piles driven in a row and held together at the top by boltedtimbers, they would lie quiet. Men armed with pike-poles would then takeup the work of distribution according to the brands stamped on the ends. Each brand had its own separate "sorting pens, " the lower end leadingagain into the open river. From these each owner's property was raftedand towed to his private booms at his mill below. 

Orde spent the day before the jam appeared in constructing what hecalled a "boomerang. "

"Invention of my own, " he explained to Newmark. "Secret invention justyet. I'm going to hold up the drive in the main river until we havethings bunched, then I'm going to throw a big crew down here by theswing. Heinzman anticipates, of course, that I'll run the entire driveinto the booms and do all my sorting there. Naturally, if I turn hislogs loose into the river as fast as I run across them, he will be ableto pick them up one at a time, for he'll only get them occasionally. IfI keep them until everything else is sorted, only Heinzman's logs willremain; and as we have no right to hold logs, we'll have to turn themloose through the lower sorting booms, where he can be ready to raftthem. In that way he gets them all right without paying us a cent. See?"

"Yes, I see, " said Newmark. 

"Well, " said Orde, with a laugh, "here is where I fool him. I'm goingto rush the drive into the booms all at once, but I'm going to sort outHeinzman's logs at these openings near the entrance and turn them intothe main channel. "

"What good will that do?" asked Newmark sceptically. "He gets themsorted just the same, doesn't he?"

"The current's fairly strong, " Orde pointed out, "and the river'salmighty wide. When you spring seven or eight million feet on a man, allat once and unexpected, and he with no crew to handle them, he's goingto keep almighty busy. And if he don't stop them this side his mill, he'll have to raft and tow them back; and if he don't stop 'em this sidethe lake, he may as well kiss them all good bye--except those that driftinto the bayous and inlets and marshes, and other ungodly places. "

"I see, " said Newmark drily. 

"But don't say a word anywhere, " warned Orde. "Secrecy is the watchwordof success with this merry little joke. "

The boomerang worked like a charm. The men had been grumbling at anapparently peaceful yielding of the point at issue, and would havesacked out many of the blazed logs if Orde had not held them rigidlyto it. Now their spirits flamed into joy again. The sorting went likeclockwork. Orde, in personal charge, watched that through the differentopenings in his "boomerang" the "H" logs were shunted into the river. Shortly the channel was full of logs floating merrily away down thelittle blue wavelets. After a while Orde handed over his job to TomNorth. 

"Can't stand it any longer, boys, " said he. "I've got to go down and seehow the Dutchman is making it. "

"Come back and tell us!" yelled one of the crew. 

"You bet I will!" Orde shouted back. 

He drove the team and buckboard down the marsh road to Heinzman's mill. There he found evidences of the wildest excitement. The mill had beenclosed down, and all the men turned in to rescue logs. Boats plied inall directions. A tug darted back and forth. Constantly the number offloating logs augmented, however. Many had already gone by. 

"If you think you're busy now, " said Orde to himself with a chuckle, "just wait until you begin to get LOGS. "

He watched for a few moments in silence. 

"What's he doing with that tug?" thought he. "O-ho! He's stringing boomsacross the river to hold the whole outfit. "

He laughed aloud, turned his team about, and drove frantically back tothe booms. Every few moments he chuckled. His eyes danced. Hardly couldhe wait to get there. Once at the camp, he leaped from the buckboard, with a shout to the stableman, and ran rapidly out over the booms towhere the sorting of "H" logs was going merrily forward. 

"He's shut down his mill, " shouted Orde, "and he's got all that gang ofhighbankers out, and every old rum-blossom in Monrovia, and I bet if yousay 'logs' to him, he'd chase his tail in circles. "

"Want this job?" North asked him. 

"No, " said Orde, suddenly fallen solemn, "haven't time. I'm going totake Marsh and the SPRITE and go to town. Old Heinzman, " he added asan afterthought, "is stringing booms across the river--obstructingnavigation. "

He ran down the length of the whole boom to where lay the two tugs. 

"Marsh, " he called when still some distance away, "got up steam?"

There appeared a short, square, blue-clad man, with hard brown cheeks, a heavy bleached flaxen moustache, and eyes steady, unwavering, and asblue as the sky. 

"Up in two minutes, " he answered, and descended from the pilot house toshout down a low door leading from the deck into the engine room. 

"Harvey, " he commanded, "fire her up!"

A tall, good-natured negro reached the upper half of his body from thelow door to seize an armful of the slabs piled along the narrow deck. Ten minutes later the SPRITE, a cloud of white smoke pouring from herfunnel, was careening down the stretch of the river. 

Captain Marsh guided his energetic charge among the logs floating in thestream with the marvellous second instinct of the expert tugboat man. A whirl of the wheel to the right, a turn to the left--the craftheeled strongly under the forcing of her powerful rudder to avoid byan arm's-length some timbers fairly flung aside by the wash. Thedisplacement of the rapid running seemed almost to press the waterabove the level of the deck on either side and about ten feet from thegunwale. As the low marshes and cat-tails flew past, Orde noted withsatisfaction that many of the logs, urged one side by the breeze, hadfound lodgment among the reeds and in the bayous and inlets. One at atime, and painfully, these would have to be salvaged. 

In a short time the mills' tall smokestacks loomed in sight. The logsthickened until it was with difficulty that Captain Marsh could threadhis way among them at all. Shortly Orde, standing by the wheel in thepilot-house, could see down the stretches of the river a crowd of menworking antlike. 

"They've got 'em stopped, " commented Orde. "Look at that gang workingfrom boats! They haven't a dozen 'cork boots' among 'em. "

"What do you want me to do?" asked Captain Marsh. 

"This is a navigable river, isn't it?" replied Orde. "Run through!"

Marsh rang for half-speed and began to nose his way gently through theloosely floating logs. Soon the tug had reached the scene of activity, and headed straight for the slender line of booms hitched end to end andstretching quite across the river. 

"I'm afraid we'll just ride over them if we hit them too slow, "suggested Marsh. 

Orde looked at his watch. 

"We'll be late for the mail unless we hurry, " said he. Marsh whirledthe spokes of his wheel over and rang the engine-room bell. The waterchurned white behind, the tug careened. 

"Vat you do! Stop!" cried Heinzman from one of the boats. 

Orde stuck his head from the pilot-house door. 

"You're obstructing navigation!" he yelled. "I've got to go to town tobuy a postage-stamp. "

The prow of the tug, accurately aimed by Marsh, hit square in thejunction of two of the booms. Immediately the water was agitated on bothsides and for a hundred feet or so by the pressure of the long polessidewise. There ensued a moment of strain; then the links snapped, andthe SPRITE plunged joyously through the opening. The booms, swept asideby the current, floated to either shore. The river was open. 

Orde, his head still out the door, looked back. "Slow down, Marsh, " saidhe. "Let's see the show. " Already the logs caught by the booms had takentheir motion and had swept past the opening. Although the lonesome tugHeinzman had on the work immediately picked up one end of the brokenboom, and with it started out into the river, she found difficulty inmaking headway against the sweep of the logs. After a long struggle shereached the middle of the river, where she was able to hold her own. 

"Wonder what next?" speculated Orde. "How are they going to get theother end of the booms out from the other bank?"

Captain Marsh had reversed the SPRITE. The tug lay nearly motionlessamidstream, her propeller slowly revolving. 

Up river all the small boats gathered in a line, connected one to theother by a rope. The tug passed over to them the cable attached to theboom. Evidently the combined efforts of the rowboats were counted onto hold the half-boom across the current while the tug brought out theother half. When the tug dropped the cable, Orde laughed. 

"Nobody but a Dutchman would have thought of that!" he cried. "Now forthe fun!"

Immediately the weight fell on the small boats, they were draggedirresistibly backward. Even from a distance the three men on the SPRITEcould make out the white-water as the oars splashed and churned andfrantically caught crabs in a vain effort to hold their own. Marshlowered his telescope, the tears streaming down his face. 

"It's better than a goat fight, " said he. 

Futilely protesting, the rowboats were dragged backward, turned as awhip is snapped, and strung out along the bank below. 

"They'll have to have two tugs before they can close the break thatway, " commented Orde. 

"Sure thing, " replied Captain Marsh. 

But at that moment a black smoke rolled up over the marshes, and shortlyaround the bend from above came the LUCY BELLE. 

The LUCY BELLE was the main excuse for calling the river navigable. Shemade trips as often as she could between Redding and Monrovia. In luck, she could cover the forty miles in a day. It was no unusual thing, however, for the LUCY BELLE to hang up indefinitely on some one ofthe numerous shifting sand bars. For that reason she carried moreimperishable freight than passengers. In appearance she wastwo-storied, with twin smokestacks, an iron Indian on her top, and a"splutter-behind" paddle-wheel. 

"There comes his help, " said Orde. "Old Simpson would stop to pick up abogus three-cent piece. "

Sure enough, on hail from one of the rowboats, the LUCY BELLE sloweddown and stopped. After a short conference, she steamed clumsily over toget hold of one end of the booms. The tug took the other. In time, andby dint of much splashing, some collisions, and several attempts, theends of the booms were united. 

By this time, however, nearly all the logs had escaped. The tug, towinga string of rowboats, set out in pursuit. 

The SPRITE continued on her way until beyond sight. Then she slowed downagain. The LUCY BELLE churned around the bend, and turned in toward thetug. 

"She's going to speak us, " marvelled Orde. "I wonder what the dickensshe wants. "

"Tug ahoy!" bellowed a red-faced individual from the upper deck. He wasdressed in blue and brass buttons, carried a telescope in one hand, andwas liberally festooned with gold braid and embroidered anchors. 

"Answer him, " Orde commanded Marsh. 

"Hullo there, commodore! what is it?" replied the tug captain. 

The red-faced figure glared down for a moment. 

"They want a tug up there at Heinzman's. Can you go?"

"Sure!" cried Marsh, choking. 

The LUCY BELLE sheered off magnificently. 

"What do you think of that?" Marsh asked Orde. 

"The commodore always acts as if that old raft was a sixty-gun frigate, "was Orde's non-committal answer. "Head up stream again. "

Heinzman saw the SPRITE coming, and rowed out frantically, splashing atevery stroke and yelling with every breath. 

"Don't you go through there! Vait a minute! Stop, I tell you!"

"Hold up!" said Orde to Marsh. 

Heinzman rowed alongside, dropped his oars and mopped his brow. 

"Vat you do?" he demanded heatedly. 

"I forgot the money to buy my stamp with, " said Orde sweetly. "I'm goingback to get it. "

"Not through my pooms!" cried Heinzman. 

"Mr. Heinzman, " said Orde severely, "you are obstructing a navigablestream. I am doing business, and I cannot be interfered with. "

"But my logs!" cried the unhappy mill man. 

"I have nothing to do with your logs. You are driving your own logs, "Orde reminded him. 

Heinzman vituperated and pounded the gunwale. 

"Go ahead, Marsh!" said Orde. 

The tug gathered way. Soon Heinzman was forced to let go. For a secondtime the chains were snapped. Orde and Marsh looked back over thechurning wake left by the SPRITE. The severed ends of the booms wereswinging back toward either shore. Between them floated a rowboat. Inthe rowboat gesticulated a pudgy man. The river was well sprinkled withlogs. Evidently the sorting was going on well. 

"May as well go back to the works, " said Orde. "He won't string themtogether again to-day--not if he waits for that tug he sent Simpsonfor. "

Accordingly, they returned to the booms, where work was suspended whileOrde detailed to an appreciative audience the happenings below. Thistickled the men immensely. 

"Why, we hain't sorted out more'n a million feet of his logs, " criedRollway Charlie. "He hain't SEEN no logs yet!"

They turned with new enthusiasm to the work of shunting "H" logs intothe channel. 

In ten minutes, however, the stableman picked his way out over the boomswith a message for Orde. 

"Mr. Heinzman's ashore, and wants to see you, " said he. 

Orde and Jim Denning exchanged glances. 

"'Coon's come down, " said the latter. 

Orde found the mill man pacing restlessly up and down before asteaming pair of horses. Newmark, perched on a stump, was surveying himsardonically and chewing the end of an unlighted cigar. 

"Here you poth are!" burst out Heinzman, when Orde stepped ashore. "Now, this must stop. I must not lose my logs! Vat is your probosition?"

Newmark broke in quickly before Orde could speak. 

"I've told Mr. Heinzman, " said he, "that we would sort and deliver therest of his logs for two dollars a thousand. "

"That will be about it, " agreed Orde. 

"But, " exploded Heinzman, "that is as much as you agreet to drive anddeliffer my whole cut!"

"Precisely, " said Newmark. 

"Put I haf all the eggspence of driving the logs myself. Why shoult Ipay you for doing what I haf alretty paid to haf done?"

Orde chuckled. 

"Heinzman, " said he, "I told you I'd make you scratch gravel. Now it'stime to talk business. You thought you were boring with a mighty auger, but it's time to revise. We aren't forced to bother with your logs, andyou're lucky to get out so easy. If I turn your whole drive into theriver, you'll lose more than half of it outright, and it'll cost you aheap to salvage the rest. And what's more, I'll turn 'em in before youcan get hold of a pile-driver. I'll sort night and day, " he bluffed, "and by to-morrow morning you won't have a stick of timber above mybooms. " He laughed again. "You want to get down to business almightysudden. "

When finally Heinzman had driven sadly away, and the whole drive, "H"logs included, was pouring into the main boom, Orde stretched his armsover his head in a luxury of satisfaction. 

"That just about settles that campaign, " he said to Newmark. 

"Oh, no, it doesn't, " replied the latter decidedly. 

"Why?" asked Orde, surprised. "You don't imagine he'll do anythingmore?"

"No, but I will, " said Newmark. 

XXVII

Early in the fall the baby was born. It proved to be a boy. Orde, nervous as a cat after the ordeal of doing nothing, tiptoed into thedarkened room. He found his wife weak and pale, her dark hair framingher face, a new look of rapt inner contemplation rendering even moremysterious her always fathomless eyes. To Orde she seemed fragile, aloof, enshrined among her laces and dainty ribbons. Hardly dared hetouch her when she held her hand out to him weakly, but fell on hisknees beside the bed and buried his face in the clothes. She placed agentle hand caressingly on his head. 

So they remained for some time. Finally he raised his eyes. She held herlips to him. He kissed them. 

"It seems sort of make-believe even yet, sweetheart, " she smiled at himwhimsically, "that we have a real, live baby all of our own. "

"Like other people, " said Orde. 

"Not like other people at all!" she disclaimed, with a show ofindignation. 

Grandma Orde brought the newcomer in for Orde's inspection. He lookedgravely down on the puckered, discoloured bit of humanity with somefeeling of disappointment, and perhaps a faint uneasiness. After amoment he voiced the latter. 

"Is--do you think--that is--" he hesitated, "does the doctor say he'sgoing to be all right?"

"All right!" cried Grandma Orde indignantly. "I'd like to know if heisn't all right now! What in the world do you expect of a new-bornbaby?"

But Carroll was laughing softly to herself on the bed. She held out herarms for the baby, and cuddled it close to her breast. 

"He's a little darling, " she crooned, "and he's going to grow up bigand strong, just like his daddy. " She put her cheek against the sleepingbabe's and looked up sidewise at the two standing above her. "But I knowhow you feel, " she said to her husband. "When they first showed him tome, I thought he looked like a peanut a thousand years old. "

Grandma Orde fairly snorted with indignation. 

"Come to your old grandmother, who appreciates you!" she cried, possessing herself of the infant. "He's a beautiful baby; one of thebest-looking new-born babies I ever saw!"

Orde escaped to the open air. He had to go to the office to attend tosome details of the business. With every step his elation increased. Atthe office he threw open his desk with a slam. Newmark jumped nervouslyand frowned. Orde's big, open, and brusque manners bothered him as theywould have bothered a cat. 

"Got a son and heir over at my place, " called Orde in his big voice. 

"This old firm's got to rustle now, I tell you. "

"Congratulate you, I'm sure, " said Newmark rather shortly. "Mrs. Orde isdoing well, I hope?"

"Fine, fine!" cried Orde. 

Newmark dropped the subject and plunged into a business matter. Orde'sattention, however, was flighty. After a little while he closed his deskwith another bang. 

"No use!" said he. "Got to make it a vacation. I'm going to run over tosee how the family is. "

Strangely enough, the young couple had not discussed before the questionof a name. One evening at twilight, when Orde was perched at the foot ofthe bed, Carroll brought up the subject. 

"He ought to be named for you, " she began timidly. "I know that, Jack, and I'd love to have another Jack Orde in the family; but, dear, I'vebeen thinking about father. He's a poor, forlorn old man, who doesn'tget much out of life. And it would please him so--oh, more than you canimagine such a thing could please anybody!"

She looked up at him doubtfully. Orde said nothing, but walked aroundthe bed to where the baby lay in his little cradle. He leaned over andtook the infant up in his gingerly awkward fashion. 

"How are you to-day, Bobby Orde?" he inquired of the blinking mite. 

XXVIII

The first season of the Boom Company was most successful. Its prospectsfor the future were bright. The drive had been delivered to its variousowners at a price below what it had cost them severally, and without thenecessary attendant bother. Therefore, the loggers were only too willingto renew their contracts for another year. This did not satisfy Newmark, however. 

"What we want, " he told Orde, "is a charter giving us exclusive rightson the river, and authorising us to ask toll. I'm going to try and getone out of the legislature. "

He departed for Lansing as soon as the Assembly opened, and almostimmediately became lost in one of those fierce struggles of politics notless bitter because concealed. Heinzman was already on the ground. 

Newmark had the shadow of right on his side, for he applied for thecharter on the basis of the river improvements already put in by hisfirm. Heinzman, however, possessed much political influence, a deepknowledge of the subterranean workings of plot and counterplot, and a"barrel. " Although armed with an apparently incontestable legal right, Newmark soon found himself fighting on the defensive. Heinzman wantedthe improvements already existing condemned and sold as a public utilityto the highest bidder. He offered further guarantees as to futureimprovements. In addition were other and more potent arguments profferedbehind closed doors. Many cases resolved themselves into a bald questionof cash. Others demanded diplomacy. Jobs, fat contracts, businessfavours, influence were all flung out freely--bribes as absolute asthough stamped with the dollar mark. Newspapers all over the State werepressed into service. These, bought up by Heinzman and his prospectivepartners in a lucrative business, spoke virtuously of private piracyof what are now called public utilities, the exploiting of the people'snatural wealths, and all the rest of a specious reasoning the moreconvincing in that it was in many other cases only too true. Theindependent journals, uninformed of the rights of the case, eitherremained silent on the matter, or groped in a puzzled and undecidedmanner on both sides. 

Against this secret but effective organisation Newmark most unexpectedlyfound himself pitted. He had anticipated being absent but a week; hebecame involved in an affair of months. 

With decision he applied himself to the problem. He took rooms at thehotel, sent for Orde, and began at once to set in motion the machineryof opposition. The refreshed resources of the company were strained tothe breaking point in order to raise money for this new campaign openingbefore it. Orde, returning to Lansing after a trip devoted to thecarrying out of Newmark's directions as to finances, was dismayed atthe tangle of strategy and cross-strategy, innuendo, vague and formlesscobweb forces by which he was surrounded. He could make nothing of them. They brushed his face, he felt their influence, yet he could place hisfinger on no tangible and comprehensible solidity. Among these delicateand complicated cross-currents Newmark moved silent, cold, secret. Heseemed to understand them, to play with them, to manipulate them aselements of the game. Above them was the hollow shock of the ostensiblebattle--the speeches, the loud talk in lobbies, the newspaper virtue, indignation, accusations; but the real struggle was here in the furtiveways, in whispered words delivered hastily aside, in hotel halls on theway to and from the stairs, behind closed doors of rooms without opentransoms. 

Orde in comic despair acknowledged that it was all "too deep for him. "Nevertheless, it was soon borne in on him that the new company wasstruggling for its very right to existence. It had been doing thatfrom the first; but now, to Orde the fight, the existence, had a newimportance. The company up to this point had been a scheme merely, anexperiment that might win or lose. Now, with the history of a drivebehind it, it had become a living entity. Orde would have fought againstits dissolution as he would have fought against a murder. Yet he hadpractically to stand one side, watching Newmark's slender, gray-clad, tense figure gliding here and there, more silent, more reserved, morewatchful every day. 

The fight endured through most of the first half of the session. Whenfinally it became evident to Heinzman that Newmark would win, he madethe issue of toll rates the ditch of his last resistance, trying toforce legal charges so low as to eat up the profits. At the last, however, the bill passed the board. The company had its charter. 

At what price only Newmark could have told. He had fought with the tenseearnestness of the nervous temperament that fights to win without countof the cost. The firm was established, but it was as heavily in debt asits credit would stand. Newmark himself, though as calm and reserved andprecise as ever, seemed to have turned gray, and one of his eyelids hadacquired a slight nervous twitch which persisted for some months. Hetook his seat at the desk, however, as calmly as ever. In three daysthe scandalised howls of bribery and corruption had given place in thenewspapers to some other sensation. 

"Joe, " said Orde to his partner, "how about all this talk? Is therereally anything in it? You haven't gone in for that business, have you?"

Newmark stretched his arms wearily. 

"Press bought up, " he replied. "I know for a fact that old Stanford gotfive hundred dollars from some of the Heinzman interests. I could haveswung him back for an extra hundred, but it wasn't worth while. Theyhowl bribery at us to distract attention from their own performances. "

With this evasive reply Orde contented himself. Whether it satisfiedhim or whether he was loath to pursue the subject further it would beimpossible to say. 

"It's cost us plenty, anyway, " he said, after a moment. "Theproposition's got a load on it. It will take us a long time to getout of debt. The river driving won't pay quite so big as we thought itwould, " he concluded, with a rueful little laugh. 

"It will pay plenty well enough, " replied Newmark decidedly, "and itgives us a vantage point to work from. You don't suppose we are going toquit at river driving, do you? We want to look around for some timberof our own; there's where the big money is. And perhaps we can buy aschooner or two and go into the carrying trade--the country's alive withopportunity. Newmark and Orde means something to these fellows now. Wecan have anything we want, if we just reach out for it. "

His thin figure, ordinarily slightly askew, had straightened; hissteel-gray, impersonal eyes had lit up behind the bowed glasses and wereseeing things beyond the wall at which they gazed. Orde looked up at himwith a sudden admiration. 

"You're the brains of this concern, " said he. 

"We'll get on, " replied Newmark, the fire dying from his eyes. 

XXIX

In the course of the next eight years Newmark and Orde floated high onthat flood of apparent prosperity that attends a business well conceivedand passably well managed. The Boom and Driving Company made money, of course, for with the margin of fifty per cent or thereaboutsnecessitated by the temporary value of the improvements, good yearscould hardly fail to bring good returns. This, it will be remembered, was a stock company. With the profits from that business the two menembarked on a separate copartnership. They made money at this, too, butthe burden of debt necessitated by new ventures, constantly weightedby the heavy interest demanded at that time, kept affairs on the raggededge. 

In addition, both Orde and Newmark were more inclined to extension ofinterests than to "playing safe. " The assets gained in one venturewere promptly pledged to another. The ramifications of debt, property, mortgages, and expectations overlapped each other in a cobweb ofinterests. 

Orde lived at ease in a new house of some size surrounded by grounds. He kept two servants: a blooded team of horses drew the successor to theoriginal buckboard. Newmark owned a sail yacht of five or six tons, inwhich, quite solitary, he took his only pleasure. Both were consideredmen of substance and property, as indeed they were. Only, theyrisked dollars to gain thousands. A succession of bad years, apanic-contraction of money markets, any one of a dozen possible, thoughnot probable, contingencies would render it difficult to meet theobligations which constantly came due, and which Newmark kept busydevising ways and means of meeting. If things went well--and it may beremarked that legitimately they should--Newmark and Orde would some daybe rated among the millionaire firms. If things went ill, bankruptcycould not be avoided. There was no middle ground. Nor were Orde andhis partner unique in this; practically every firm then developing orexploiting the natural resources of the country found itself in the samecase. 

Immediately after the granting of the charter to drive the river thepartners had offered them an opportunity of acquiring about thirtymillion feet of timber remaining from Morrison and Daly's originalholdings. That firm was very anxious to begin development on a largescale of its Beeson Lake properties in the Saginaw waters. Daly proposedto Orde that he take over the remnant, and having confidence in theyoung man's abilities, agreed to let him have it on long-time notes. After several consultations with Newmark, Orde finally completed thepurchase. Below the booms they erected a mill, the machinery for whichthey had also bought of Daly, at Redding. The following winter Ordespent in the woods. By spring he had banked, ready to drive, about sixmillion feet. 

For some years these two sorts of activity gave the partners about allthey could attend to. As soon as the drive had passed Redding, Orde leftit in charge of one of his foremen while he divided his time between thebooms and the mill. Late in the year his woods trips began, the tours ofinspection, of surveying for new roads, the inevitable preparation forthe long winter campaigns in the forest. As soon as the spring thawsbegan, once more the drive demanded his attention. And in marketing thelumber, manipulating the firm's financial affairs, collecting its dues, paying its bills, making its purchases, and keeping oiled theintricate bearing points of its office machinery, Newmark was busy--andinvaluable. 

At the end of the fifth year the opportunity came, through a combinationof a bad debt and a man's death, to get possession of two lakeschooners. Orde at once suggested the contract for a steam barge. Towing was then in its infancy. The bulk of lake traffic was by meansof individual sailing ships--a method uncertain as to time. Orde thoughtthat a steam barge could be built powerful enough not only to carry itsown hold and deck loads, but to tow after it the two schooners. In thismanner the crews could be reduced, and an approximate date of deliverycould be guaranteed. Newmark agreed with him. Thus the firm, inaccordance with his prophecy, went into the carrying trade, for thevessels more than sufficed for its own needs. The freighting of lumberadded much to the income, and the carrying of machinery and other heavyfreight on the return trip grew every year. 

But by far the most important acquisition was that of the northernpeninsula timber. Most operators called the white pine along and backfrom the river inexhaustible. Orde did not believe this. He saw thetime, not far distant, when the world would be compelled to lookelsewhere for its lumber supply, and he turned his eyes to the almostunknown North. After a long investigation through agents, and a month'sland-looking on his own account, he located and purchased three hundredmillion feet. This was to be paid for, as usual, mostly by the firm'snotes secured by its other property. It would become available onlyin the future, but Orde believed, as indeed the event justified, thisfuture would prove to be not so distant as most people supposed. 

As these interests widened, Orde became more and more immersed in them. He was forced to be away all of every day, and more than the bulk ofevery year. Nevertheless, his home life did not suffer for it. 

To Carroll he was always the same big, hearty, whole-souled boy shehad first learned to love. She had all his confidence. If this did notextend into business affairs, it was because Orde had always tried toget away from them when at home. At first Carroll had attempted to keepin the current of her husband's activities, but as the latter broadenedin scope and became more complex, she perceived that their explanationwearied him. She grew out of the habit of asking him about them. Soontheir rapid advance had carried them quite beyond her horizon. To her, also, as to most women, the word "business" connoted nothing but aturmoil and a mystery. 

In all other things they were to each other what they had been from thefirst. No more children had come to them. Bobby, however; had turned outa sturdy, honest little fellow, with more than a streak of his mother'scharm and intuition. His future was the subject of all Orde's plans. 

"I want to give him all the chance there is, " he explained to Carroll. "A boy ought to start where his father left off, and not have to do thesame thing all over again. But being a rich man's son isn't much of ajob. "

"Why don't you let him continue your business?" smiled Carroll, secretlyamused at the idea of the small person before them ever doing anything. 

"By the time Bobby's grown up this business will all be closed out, "replied Orde seriously. 

He continued to look at his minute son with puckered brow, until Carrollsmoothed out the wrinkles with the tips of her fingers. 

"Of course, having only a few minutes to decide, " she mocked, "perhapswe'd better make up our minds right now to have him a street-cardriver. "

"Yes!" agreed Bobby unexpectedly, and with emphasis. 

Three years after this conversation, which would have made Bobby justeight, Orde came back before six of a summer evening, his face alightwith satisfaction. 

"Hullo, bub!" he cried to Bobby, tossing him to his shoulder. "How's thekid?"

They went out together, while awaiting dinner, to see the new setterpuppy in the woodshed. 

"Named him yet?" asked Orde. 

"Duke, " said Bobby. 

Orde surveyed the animal gravely. 

"Seems like a good name, " said he. 

After dinner the two adjourned to the library, where they sat togetherin the "big chair, " and Bobby, squirmed a little sidewise in order thebetter to see, watched the smoke from his father's cigar as it eddiedand curled in the air. 

"Tell a story, " he commanded finally. 

"Well, " acquiesced Orde, "there was once a man who had a cow--"

"Once upon a time, " corrected Bobby. 

He listened for a moment or so. 

"I don't like that story, " he then announced. "Tell the story about thebears. "

"But this is a new story, " protested Orde, "and you've heard about thebears so many times. "

"Bears, " insisted Bobby. 

"Well, once upon a time there were three bears--a big bear and amiddle-sized bear and a little bear--" began Orde obediently. 

Bobby, with a sigh of rapture and content, curled up in a snug, warmlittle ball. The twilight darkened. 

"Blind-man's holiday!" warned Carroll behind them so suddenly that theyboth jumped. "And the sand man's been at somebody, I know!"

She bore him away to bed. Orde sat smoking in the darkness, staringstraight ahead of him into the future. He believed he had found theopportunity--twenty years distant--for which he had been looking solong. 

XXX

After a time Carroll descended the stairs, chuckling. "Jack, " she calledinto the sitting-room, "come out on the porch. What do you suppose theyoung man did to-night?"

"Give it up, " replied Orde promptly. "No good guessing when it's aquestion of that youngster's performances. What was it?"

"He said his 'Now I lay me, ' and asked blessings on you and me, and thegrandpas and grandmas, and Auntie Kate, as usual. Then he stopped. 'What else?' I reminded him. 'And, ' he finished with a rush, 'make-Bobby-a-good-boy-and-give-him-plenty-of-bread-'n-butter-'napple-sauce!'"

They laughed delightedly over this, clinging together like two children. Then they stepped out on the little porch and looked into the fathomlessnight. The sky was full of stars, aloof and calm, but waiting breathlesson the edge of action, attending the word of command or the celestialvision, or whatever it is for which stars seem to wait. Along thestreet the dense velvet shade of the maples threw the sidewalks intoimpenetrable blackness. Sounds carried clearly. From the Welton's, downthe street, came the tinkle of a mandolin and an occasional low laughfrom the group of young people that nightly frequented the front steps. Tree toads chirped in unison or fell abruptly silent as though bysignal. All up and down the rows of houses whirred the low monotone ofthe lawn sprinklers, and the aroma of their wetness was borne cool andrefreshing through the tepid air. 

Orde and his wife sat together on the top step. He slipped his arm abouther. They said nothing, but breathed deep of the quiet happiness thatfilled their lives. 

The gate latch clicked and two shadowy figures defined themselvesapproaching up the concrete walk. 

"Hullo!" called Orde cheerfully into the darkness. 

"Hullo!" a man's voice instantly responded. 

"Taylor and Clara, " said Orde to Carroll with satisfaction. "Just theman I wanted to see. "

The lawyer and his wife mounted the steps. He was a quick, energetic, spare man, with lean cheeks, a bristling, clipped moustache, anda slight stoop to his shoulders. She was small, piquant, almostchild-like, with a dainty up-turned nose, a large and lustrous eye, a constant, bird-like animation of manner--the Folly of artists, theadorable, lovable, harmless Folly standing tiptoe on a complaisantworld. 

"Just the man I wanted to see, " repeated Orde, as the two approached. 

Clara Taylor stopped short and considered him for a moment. 

"Let us away, " she said seriously to Carroll. "My prophetic soul tellsme they are going to talk business, and if any more business is talkedin my presence, I shall EXPIRE!"

Both men laughed, but Orde explained apologetically:

"Well, you know, Mrs. Taylor, these are my especially busy days for thefirm, and I have to work my private affairs in when I can. "

"I thought Frank was very solicitous about my getting out in the air, "cried Clara. "Come, Carroll, let's wander down the street and see MinaHeinzman. "

The two interlocked arms and sauntered along the walk. Both men litcigars and sat on the top step of the porch. 

"Look here, Taylor, " broke in Orde abruptly, "you told me the other dayyou had fifteen or twenty thousand you wanted to place somewhere. "

"Yes, " replied Taylor. 

"Well, I believe I have just the proposition. "

"What is it?"

"California pine, " replied Orde. 

"California pine?" repeated Taylor, after a slight pause. "WhyCalifornia? That's a long way off. And there's no market, is there? Whyway out there?"

"It's cheap, " replied Orde succinctly. "I don't say it will be goodfor immediate returns, nor even for returns in the near future, but intwenty or thirty years it ought to pay big on a small investment madenow. "

Taylor shook his head doubtfully. 

"I don't see how you figure it, " he objected. "We have more timber thanwe can use in the East. Why should we go several thousand miles west forthe same thing?"

"When our timber gives out, then we'll HAVE to go west, " said Orde. 

Taylor laughed. 

"Laugh all you please, " rejoined Orde, "but I tell you Michigan andWisconsin pine is doomed. Twenty or thirty years from now there won't beany white pine for sale. "

"Nonsense!" objected Taylor. "You're talking wild. We haven't even begunon the upper peninsula. After that there's Minnesota. And I haven'tobserved that we're quite out of timber on the river, or the Muskegon, or the Saginaw, or the Grand, or the Cheboygan--why, Great Scott! man, our children's children's children may be thinking of investing inCalifornia timber, but that's about soon enough. "

"All tight, " said Orde quietly. "Well, what do you think of Indiana as agood field for timber investment?"

"Indiana!" cried Taylor, amazed. "Why, there's no timber there; it's aprairie. "

"There used to be. And all the southern Michigan farm belt was timbered, and around here. We have our stumps to show for it, but there are noevidences at all farther south. You'd have hard work, for instance, topersuade a stranger that Van Buren County was once forest. "

"Was it?" asked Taylor doubtfully. 

"It was. You take your map and see how much area has been cut already, and how much remains. That'll open your eyes. And remember all that hasbeen done by crude methods for a relatively small demand. The demandincreases as the country grows and methods improve. It would notsurprise me if some day thirty or forty millions would constitute anaverage cut. [*] 'Michigan pine exhaustless!'--those fellows make me sick!"

 * At the present day some firms cut as high as 150, 000, 000 feet. 

"Sounds a little more reasonable, " said Taylor slowly. 

"It'll sound a lot more reasonable in five or ten years, " insistedOrde, "and then you'll see the big men rushing out into that Oregon andCalifornia country. But now a man can get practically the pick of thecoast. There are only a few big concerns out there. "

"Why is it that no one--"

"Because, " Orde cut him short, "the big things are for the fellow whocan see far enough ahead. "

"What kind of a proposition have you?" asked Taylor after a pause. 

"I can get ten thousand acres at an average price of eight dollars anacre, " replied Orde. 

"Acres? What does that mean in timber?"

"On this particular tract it means about four hundred million feet. "

"That's about twenty cents a thousand. "

Orde nodded. 

"And of course you couldn't operate for a long time?"

"Not for twenty, maybe thirty, years, " replied Orde calmly. 

"There's your interest on your money, and taxes, and the risk of fireand--"

"Of course, of course, " agreed Orde impatiently, "but you're gettingyour stumpage for twenty cents or a little more, and in thirty years itwill be worth as high as a dollar and a half. " [*]

 * At the present time (1908) sugar pine such as Orde described would cost $3. 50 to $4. 

"What!" cried Taylor. 

"That is my opinion, " said Orde. 

Taylor relapsed into thought. 

"Look here, Orde, " he broke cut finally, "how old are you?"

"Thirty-eight. Why?"

"How much timber have you in Michigan?"

"About ten million that we've picked up on the river since the Dalypurchase and three hundred million in the northern peninsula. "

"Which will take you twenty years to cut, and make you a million dollarsor so?"

"Hope so. "

"Then why this investment thirty years ahead?"

"It's for Bobby, " explained Orde simply. "A man likes to have his soncontinue on in his business. I can't do it here, but there I can. Itwould take fifty years to cut that pine, and that will give Bobby asteady income and a steady business. "

"Bobby will be well enough off, anyway. He won't have to go intobusiness. "

Orde's brow puckered. 

"I know a man--Bobby is going to work. A man is not a success in lifeunless he does something, and Bobby is going to be a success. Why, Taylor, " he chuckled, "the little rascal fills the wood-box for a cent atime, and that's all the pocket-money he gets. He's saving now to buy athousand-dollar boat. I've agreed to pool in half. At his present rateof income, I'm safe for about sixty years yet. "

"How soon are you going to close this deal?" asked Taylor, rising as hecaught sight of two figures coming up the walk. 

"I have an option until November 1, " replied Orde. "If you can't makeit, I guess I can swing it myself. By the way, keep this dark. "

Taylor nodded, and the two turned to defend themselves as best theycould against Clara's laughing attack. 

XXXI

Orde had said nothing to Newmark concerning this purposed newinvestment, nor did he intend doing so. 

"It is for Bobby, " he told himself, "and I want Bobby, and no one else, to run it. Joe would want to take charge, naturally. Taylor won't. Heknows nothing of the business. "

He walked downtown next morning busily formulating his scheme. At theoffice he found Newmark already seated at his desk, a pile of lettersin front of him. Upon Orde's boisterous greeting his nerves crispedslightly, but of this there was no outward sign beyond a tightening ofhis hands on the letter he was reading. Behind his eye-glasses hisblue, cynical eyes twinkled like frost crystals. As always, he wasimmaculately dressed in neat gray clothes, and carried in one corner ofhis mouth an unlighted cigar. 

"Joe, " said Orde, spinning a chair to Newmark's roll-top desk andspeaking in a low tone, "just how do we stand on that upper peninsulastumpage?"

"What do you mean? How much of it is there? You know that as well as Ido--about three hundred million. "

"No; I mean financially. "

"We've made two payments of seventy-five thousand each, and have stilltwo to make of the same amount. "

"What could we borrow on it?"

"We don't want to borrow anything on it, " returned Newmark in a flash. 

"Perhaps not; but if we should?"

"We might raise fifty or seventy-five thousand, I suppose. "

"Joe, " said Orde, "I want to raise about seventy-five thousand dollarson my share in this concern, if it can be done. "

"What's up?" inquired Newmark keenly. 

"It's a private matter. "

Newmark said nothing, but for some time thought busily, his light blueeyes narrowed to a slit. 

"I'll have to figure on it a while, " said he at last, and turned backto his mail. All day he worked hard, with only a fifteen-minuteintermission for a lunch which was brought up from the hotel below. Atsix o'clock he slammed shut the desk. He descended the stairs with Orde, from whom he parted at their foot, and walked precisely away, his tall, thin figure held rigid and slightly askew, his pale eyes slitted behindhis eye-glasses, the unlighted cigar in one corner of his straight lips. To the occasional passerby he bowed coldly and with formality. At thecorner below he bore to the left, and after a short walk entered thesmall one-story house set well back from the sidewalk among the clumpsof oleanders. Here he turned into a study, quietly and richly furnishedten years in advance of the taste then prevalent in Monrovia, where hesank into a deep-cushioned chair and lit the much-chewed cigar. For somemoments he lay back with his eyes shut. Then he opened them to look withapproval on the dark walnut book-cases, the framed prints and etchings, the bronzed student's lamp on the square table desk, the rugs on thepolished floor. He picked up a magazine, into which he dipped for tenminutes. 

The door opened noiselessly behind him. 

"Mr. Newmark, sir, " came a respectful voice, "it is just short ofseven. "

"Very well, " replied Newmark, without looking around. 

The man withdrew as softly as he had come. After a moment, Newmarkreplaced the magazine on the table, yawned, threw aside the cigar, ofwhich he had smoked but an inch, and passed from his study intohis bedroom across the hall. This contained an exquisite Colonialfour-poster, with a lowboy and dresser to match, and was papered andcarpeted in accordance with these, its chief ornaments. Newmark bathedin the adjoining bathroom, shaved carefully between the two waxlights which were his whim, and dressed in what were then known as"swallow-tail" clothes. Probably he was the only man in Monrovia at thatmoment so apparelled. Then calmly, and with all the deliberation of oneunder fire of a hundred eyes, he proceeded to the dining-room, wherewaited the man who had a short time before reminded him of the hour. Hewas a solemn, dignified man, whose like was not to be found elsewherethis side the city. He, too, wore the "swallow-tail, " but its buttonswere of gilt. 

Newmark seated himself in a leather-upholstered mahogany chair before asmall, round, mahogany table. The room was illuminated only by four waxcandles with red shades. They threw into relief the polish of mahogany, the glitter of glass, the shine of silver, but into darkness the detailof massive sideboard, dull panelling, and the two or three dark-tonedsporting prints on the wall. 

"You may serve dinner, Mallock, " said Newmark. 

He ate deliberately and with enjoyment the meal, exquisitely preparedand exquisitely presented to him. With it he drank a single glass ofBurgundy--a deed that would, in the eyes of Monrovia, have condemned himas certainly as driving a horse on Sunday or playing cards for a stake. Afterward he returned to the study, whither Mallock brought coffee. Helit another cigar, opened a drawer in his desk, extracted therefrom somebank-books and small personal account books. From these he figured allthe evening. His cigar went out, but he did not notice that, and chewedaway quite contentedly on the dead butt. When he had finished, his coldeye exhibited a gleam of satisfaction. He had resolved on a course ofaction. At ten o'clock he went to bed. 

Next morning Mallock closed the door behind him promptly upon the strokeof eight. It was strange that not one living soul but Mallock had everentered Newmark's abode. Curiosity had at first brought a few callers;but these were always met by the imperturbable servant with so plausiblea reason for his master's absence that the visitors had departed withouta suspicion that they had been deliberately excluded. And as Newmarkmade no friends and excited little interest, the attempts to cultivatehim gradually ceased. 

"Orde, " said Newmark, as the former entered the office, "I think I canarrange this matter. "

Orde drew up a chair. 

"I talked last evening with a man from Detroit named Thayer, who thinkshe may advance seventy-five thousand dollars on a mortgage on ournorthern peninsula stumpage. For that, of course, we will give thefirm's note with interest at ten per cent. I will turn this over toyou. "

"That's--" began Orde. 

"Hold on, " interrupted Newmark. "As collateral security you will depositfor me your stock in the Boom Company, indorsed in blank. If you do notpay the full amount of the firm's note to Thayer, then the stock will beturned in to me. "

"I see, " said Orde. 

"Now, don't misunderstand me, " said Newmark drily. "This is your ownaffair, and I do not urge it on you. If we raise as much as seventy-fivethousand dollars on that upper peninsula stumpage, it will be all itcan stand, for next year we must make a third payment on it. If you takethat money, it is of course proper that you pay the interest on it. "

"Certainly, " said Orde. 

"And if there's any possibility of the foreclosure of the mortgage, itis only right that you run all the risk of loss--not myself. "

"Certainly, " repeated Orde. 

"From another point of view, " went on Newmark, "you are practicallymortgaging your interest in the Boom Company for seventy-five thousanddollars. That would make, on the usual basis of a mortgage, your shareworth above two hundred thousand--and four hundred thousand is a highvaluation of our property. "

"That looks more than decent on your part, " said Orde. 

"Of course, it's none of my business what you intend to do with this, "went on Newmark, "but unless you're SURE you can meet these notes, Ishould strongly advise against it. "

"The same remark applies to any mortgage, " rejoined Orde. 

"Exactly. "

"For how long a time could I get this?" asked Orde at length. 

"I couldn't promise it for longer than five years, " replied Newmark. 

"That would make about fifteen thousand a year?"

"And interest. "

"Certainly--and interest. Well, I don't see why I can't carry thateasily on our present showing and prospects. "

"If nothing untoward happens, " insisted Newmark determined to putforward all objections possible. 

"It's not much risk, " said Orde hopefully. "There's nothing surerthan lumber. We'll pay the notes easily enough as we cut, and the BoomCompany's on velvet now. What do our earnings figure, anyway?"

"We're driving one hundred and fifty million at a profit of about sixtycents a thousand, " said Newmark. 

"That's ninety thousand dollars--in five years, four hundred and fiftythousand, " said Orde, sucking his pencil. 

"We ought to clean up five dollars a thousand on our mill. "

"That's about a hundred thousand on what we've got left. "

"And that little barge business nets us about twelve or fifteen thousanda year. "

"For the five years about sixty thousand more. Let's see--that's a totalof say six hundred thousand dollars in five years. "

"We will have to take up in that time, " said Newmark, who seemed to havethe statistics at his finger-tips, "the two payments on our timber, the note on the First National, the Commercial note, the remainingliabilities on the Boom Company--about three hundred thousand all told, counting the interest. "

Orde crumpled the paper and threw it into the waste basket. 

"Correct, " said he. "Good enough. I ought to get along on a margin likethat. "

He went over to his own desk, where he again set to figuring on hispad. The results he eyed a little doubtfully. Each year he must pay ininterest the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars. Each yearhe would have to count on a proportionate saving of fifteen thousanddollars toward payment of the notes. In addition, he must live. 

"The Orde family is going to be mighty hard up, " said he, whistlinghumorously. 

But Orde was by nature and training sanguine and fond of big risks. 

"Never mind; it's for Bobby, " said he to himself. "And maybe the rateof interest will go down. And I'll be able to borrow on the Californiatract if anything does go wrong. "

He put on his hat, thrust a bundle of papers into his pocket, andstepped across the hall into Taylor's office. 

The lawyer he found tipped back in his revolving chair, reading aprinted brief. 

"Frank, " began Orde immediately, "I came to see you about thatCalifornia timber matter. "

Taylor laid down the brief and removed his eye-glasses, with which hebegan immediately to tap the fingers of his left hand. 

"Sit down, Jack, " said he. "I'm glad you came in. I was going to tryto see you some time to-day. I've been thinking the matter over verycarefully since the other day, and I've come to the conclusion that itis too steep for me. I don't doubt the investment a bit, but the returnsare too far off. Fifteen thousand means a lot more to me than it does toyou, and I've got to think of the immediate future. I hope you weren'tcounting on me--"

"Oh, that's all right, " broke in Orde. "As I told you, I can swing thething myself, and only mentioned it to you on the off chance you mightwant to invest. Now, what I want is this--" he proceeded to outlinecarefully the agreement between himself and Newmark while the lawyertook notes and occasionally interjected a question. 

"All right, " said the latter, when the details had been mastered. "I'lldraw the necessary notes and papers. "

"Now, " went on Orde, producing the bundle of papers from his pocket, "here's the abstract of title. I wish you'd look it over. It's a longone, but not complicated, as near as I can make out. Trace seems to haveacquired this tract mostly from the original homesteaders and the like, who, of course, take title direct from the government. But naturallythere are a heap of them, and I want you to look it over to be sureeverything's shipshape. "

"All right, " agreed Taylor, reaching for the papers. 

"One other thing, " concluded Orde, uncrossing his legs. "I want thisinvestment to get no further than the office door. You see, this isfor Bobby, and I've given a lot of thought to that sort of thing; andnothing spoils a man sooner than to imagine the thing's all cut anddried for him, and nothing keeps him going like the thought that he'sgot to rustle his own opportunities. You and I know that. Bobby'sgoing to have the best education possible; he's going to learn to be alumberman by practical experience, and that practical experience he'llget with other people. No working for his dad in Bobby's, I can tellyou. When he gets through college, I'll get him a little job clerkingwith some good firm, and he'll have a chance to show what is in him andto learn the business from the ground up, the way a man ought to. Ofcourse, I'll make arrangements that he has a real chance. Then, whenhe's worked into the harness a little, the old man will take him out andshow him the fine big sugar pine and say to him, 'There, my boy, there'syour opportunity, and you've earned it. How does ORDE AND SON sound toyou?' What do you think of it, Frank?"

Taylor nodded several times. 

"I believe you're on the right track, and I'll help you all I can, " saidhe briefly. 

"So, of course, I want to keep the thing dead secret, " continued Orde. "You're the only man who knows anything about it. I'm not even goingto buy directly under my own name. I'm going to incorporate myself, " hesaid, with a grin. "You know how those things will get out, and how theyalways get back to the wrong people. "

"Count on me, " Taylor assured him. 

As Orde walked home that evening, after a hot day, his mind was full ofspeculation as to the immediate future. He had a local reputation forwealth, and no one knew better than himself how important it is for aman in debt to keep up appearances. Nevertheless, decided retrenchmentwould be necessary. After Bobby had gone to bed, he explained this tohis wife. 

"What's the matter?" she asked quickly. "Is the firm losing money?"

"No, " replied Orde, "it's a matter of reinvestment. " He hesitated. "It'sa dead secret, which I don't want to get out, but I'm thinking of buyingsome western timber for Bobby when he grows up. "

Carroll laughed softly. 

"You so relieve my mind, " she smiled at him. "I was afraid you'd decidedon the street-car-driver idea. Why, sweetheart, you know perfectly wellwe could go back to the little house next the church and be as happy aslarks. "

XXXII

In the meantime Newmark had closed his desk, picked his hat from thenail, and marched precisely down the street to Heinzman's office. Hefound the little German in. Newmark demanded a private interview, andwithout preliminary plunged into the business that had brought him. Hehad long since taken Heinzman's measure, as, indeed, he had takenthe measure of every other man with whom he did or was likely to dobusiness. 

"Heinzman, " said he abruptly, "my partner wants to raise seventy-fivethousand dollars for his personal use. I have agreed to get him thatmoney from the firm. "

Heinzman sat immovable, his round eyes blinking behind his bigspectacles. 

"Proceed, " said he shrewdly. 

"As security in case he cannot pay the notes the firm will have to give, he has signed an agreement to turn over to me his undivided one-halfinterest in our enterprises. "

"Vell? You vant to borrow dot money of me?" asked Heinzman. "I could notraise it. "

"I know that perfectly well, " replied Newmark coolly. "You are going tohave difficulty meeting your July notes, as it is. "

Heinzman hardly seemed to breathe, but a flicker of red blazed in hiseye. 

"Proceed, " he repeated non-committally, after a moment. "I intend, " wenton Newmark, "to furnish this money myself. It must, however, seem to beloaned by another. I want you to lend this money on mortgage. "

"What for?" asked Heinzman. 

"For a one tenth of Orde's share in case he does not meet those notes. "

"But he vill meet the notes, " objected Heinzman. "You are a prosperousconcern. I know somethings of YOUR business, also. "

"He thinks he will, " rejoined Newmark grimly. "I will merely pointout to you that his entire income is from the firm, and that from thisincome he must save twenty-odd thousand a year. 

"If the firm has hard luck--" said Heinzman. 

"Exactly, " finished Newmark. 

"Vy you come to me?" demanded Heinzman at length. 

"Well, I'm offering you a chance to get even with Orde. I don't imagineyou love him?"

"Vat's de matter mit my gettin' efen with you, too?" cried Heinzman. "Ain't you beat me out at Lansing?"

Newmark smiled coldly under his clipped moustache. 

"I'm offering you the chance of making anywhere from thirty to fiftythousand dollars. "

"Perhaps. And suppose this liddle scheme don't work out?"

"And, " pursued Newmark calmly, "I'll carry you over in your presentobligations. " He suddenly hit the arm of his chair with his clenchedfist. "Heinzman, if you don't make those July payments, what's to becomeof you? Where's your timber and your mills and your new house--and thatpretty daughter of yours?"

Heinzman winced visibly. 

"I vill get an extension of time, " said he feebly. 

"Will you?" countered Newmark. 

The two men looked each other in the eye for a moment. 

"Vell, maybe, " laughed Heinzman uneasily. "It looks to me like awinner. "

"All right, then, " said Newmark briskly. "I'll make out a mortgage atten per cent for you, and you'll lend the money on it. At the propertime, if things happen that way, you will foreclose. That's all youhave to do with it. Then, when the timber land comes to you under theforeclose, you will reconvey an undivided nine-tenths' interest--forproper consideration, of course, and without recording the deed. "

Heinzman laughed with assumed lightness. 

"Suppose I fool you, " said he. "I guess I joost keep it for mineself. "

Newmark looked at him coldly. 

"I wouldn't, " he advised. "You may remember the member from LapeerCounty in that charter fight? And the five hundred dollars for his vote?Try it on, and see how much evidence I can bring up. It's called briberyin this State, and means penitentiary usually. "

"You don't take a joke, " complained Heinzman. 

Newmark arose. 

"It's understood, then?" he asked. 

"How so I know you play fair?" asked the German. 

"You don't. It's a case where we have to depend more or less on eachother. But I don't see what you stand to lose--and anyway you'll getcarried over those July payments, " Newmark reminded him. 

Heinzman was plainly uneasy and slightly afraid of these new waters inwhich he swam. 

"If you reduce the firm's profits, he iss going to suspect, " headmonished. 

"Who said anything about reducing the firm's profits?" said Newmarkimpatiently. "If it does work out that way, we'll win a big thing; if itdoes not, we'll lose nothing. "

He nodded to Heinzman and left the office. His demeanour was as dry andprecise as ever. No expression illuminated his impassive countenance. Ifhe felt the slightest uneasiness over having practically delivered hisintentions to the keeping of another, he did not show it. For one thing, an accomplice was absolutely essential. And, too, he held the German byhis strongest passions--his avarice, his dread of bankruptcy, his pride, and his fear of the penitentiary. As he entered the office of his ownfirm, his eye fell on Orde's bulky form seated at the desk. He pausedinvoluntarily, and a slight shiver shook his frame from head tofoot--the dainty, instinctive repulsion of a cat for a large robustiousdog. Instantly controlling himself, he stepped forward. 

"I've made the loan, " he announced. 

Orde looked up with interest. 

"The banks wouldn't touch northern peninsula, " said Newmark steadily, "so I had to go to private individuals. "

"So you said. Don't care who deals it out, " laughed Orde. 

"Thayer backed out, so finally I got the whole amount from Heinzman, "Newmark announced. 

"Didn't know the old Dutchman was that well off, " said Orde, after aslight pause. 

"Can't tell about those secretive old fellows, " said Newmark. 

Orde hesitated. 

"I didn't know he was friendly enough to lend us money. "

"Business is business, " replied Newmark. 

XXXIII

There exists the legend of an eastern despot who, wishing to rid himselfof a courtier, armed the man and shut him in a dark room. The victimknew he was to fight something, but whence it was to come, when, or ofwhat nature he was unable to guess. In the event, while groping tensefor an enemy, he fell under the fatal fumes of noxious gases. 

From the moment Orde completed the secret purchase of the Californiatimber lands from Trace, he became an unwitting participant in one ofthe strangest duels known to business history. Newmark opposed to himall the subtleties, all the ruses and expedients to which his positionlent itself. Orde, sublimely unconscious, deployed the magnificentresources of strength, energy, organisation, and combative spirit thatanimated his pioneer's soul. The occult manoeuverings of Newmark calledout fresh exertions on the part of Orde. 

Newmark worked under this disadvantage: he had carefully to avoid theslightest appearance of an attitude inimical to the firm's very bestprosperity. A breath of suspicion would destroy his plans. If thesmallest untoward incident should ever bring it clearly before Orde thatNewmark might have an interest in reducing profits, he could not failto tread out the logic of the latter's devious ways. For this reasonNewmark could not as yet fight even in the twilight. He did not daremake bad sales, awkward transactions. In spite of his best efforts, hecould not succeed, without the aid of chance, in striking a blow fromwhich Orde could not recover. The profits of the first year were notquite up to the usual standard, but they sufficed. Newmark's finesse cutin two the firm's income of the second year. Orde roused himself. Withhis old-time energy of resource, he hurried the woods work until anespecially big cut gave promise of recouping the losses of the yearbefore. Newmark found himself struggling against a force greater thanhe had imagined it to be. Blinded and bound, it nevertheless made headagainst his policy. Newmark was forced to a temporary quiescence. Heheld himself watchful, intent, awaiting the opportunity which chanceshould bring. 

Chance seemed by no means in haste. The end of the fourth year foundNewmark puzzled. Orde had paid regularly the interest on his notes. How much he had been able to save toward the redemption of the notesthemselves his partner was unable to decide. It depended entirely on howmuch the Ordes had disbursed in living expenses, whether or not Orde hadany private debts, and whether or not he had private resources. In themeantime Newmark contented himself with tying up the firm's assets insuch a manner as to render it impossible to raise money on its propertywhen the time should come. 

What Orde regarded as a series of petty annoyances had made the problemof paying for the California timber a matter of greater difficulty thanhe had supposed it would be. A pressure whose points of support he couldnot place was closing slowly on him. Against this pressure he exertedhimself. It made him a trifle uneasy, but it did not worry him. Themargin of safety was not as broad as he had reckoned, but it existed. And in any case, if worse came to worst, he could always mortgagethe California timber for enough to make up the difference--and more. Against this expedient, however, he opposed a sentimental obstinacy. It was Bobby's, and he objected to encumbering it. In fact, Ordewas capable of a prolonged and bitter struggle to avoid doing so. Nevertheless, it was there--an asset. A loan on its security would, withwhat he had set aside, more than pay the notes on the northern peninsulastumpage. Orde felt perfectly easy in his mind. He was in the positionof many of our rich men's sons who, quite sincerely and earnestly, gopenniless to the city to make their way. They live on their nine dollarsa week, and go hungry when they lose their jobs. They stand on their ownfeet, and yet--in case of severe illness or actual starvation--the oldman is there! It gives them a courage to be contented on nothing. SoOrde would have gone to almost any lengths to keep free "Bobby's tract, "but it stood always between himself and disaster. And a loan on westerntimber could be paid off just as easily as a loan on eastern timber;when you came right down to that. Even could he have known his partner'sintentions, they would, on this account, have caused him no uneasiness, however angry they would have made him, or however determined to breakthe partnership. Even though Newmark destroyed utterly the firm'sprofits for the remaining year and a half the notes had to run, he couldnot thereby ruin Orde's chances. A loan on the California timber wouldsolve all problems now. In this reasoning Orde would have committedthe mistake of all large and generous temperaments when called upon tomeasure natures more subtle than their own. He would have underestimatedboth Newmark's resources and his own grasp of situations. [*]

 * The author has considered it useless to burden the course of the narrative with a detailed account of Newmark's financial manoeuvres. Realising, however, that a large class of his readers might be interested in the exact particulars, he herewith gives a sketch of the transactions. 

 It will be remembered that at the time--1878--Orde first came in need of money for the purpose of buying the California timber, the firm, Newmark and Orde, owned in the northern peninsula 300, 000, 000 feet of pine. On this they had paid $150, 000, and owed still a like amount. They borrowed $75, 000 on it, giving a note secured by mortgage due in 1883. Orde took this, giving in return his note secured by the Boom Company's stock. In 1879 and 1880 they made the two final payments on the timber; so that by the latter date they owned the land free of encumbrance save for the mortgage of $75, 000. Since Newmark's plan had always contemplated the eventual foreclosure of this mortgage, it now became necessary further to encumber the property. Otherwise, since a property worth considerably above $300, 000 carried only a $75, 000 mortgage, it would be possible, when the latter came due, to borrow a further sum on a second mortgage with which to meet the obligations of the first. Therefore Newmark, in 1881, approached Orde with the request that the firm raise $70, 000 by means of a second mortgage on the timber. This $70, 000 he proposed to borrow personally, giving his note due in 1885 and putting up the same collateral as Orde had--that is to say, his stock in the Boom Company. To this Orde could hardly in reason oppose an objection, as it nearly duplicated his own transaction of 1878. Newmark therefore, through Heinzman, lent this sum to himself. 

 It may now be permitted to forecast events in the line of Newmark's reasoning. 

 If his plans should work out, this is what would happen: in 1883 the firm's note for $75, 000 would come due. Orde would be unable to pay it. Therefore at once his stock in the Boom Company would become the property of Newmark and Orde. Newmark would profess himself unable to raise enough from the firm to pay the mortgage. The second mortgage from which he had drawn his personal loan would render it impossible for the firm to raise more money on the land. A foreclosure would follow. Through Heinzman, Newmark would buy in. As he had himself loaned the money to himself--again through Heinzman--on the second mortgage, the latter would occasion him no loss. 

 The net results of the whole transaction would be: first, that Newmark would have acquired personally the 300, 000, 000 feet of northern peninsula timber; and, second, that Orde's personal share in the stock company would flow be held in partnership by the two. Thus, in order to gain so large a stake, it would pay Newmark to suffer considerable loss jointly with Orde in the induced misfortunes of the firm. 

 Incidentally it might be remarked that Newmark, of course, purposed paying his own note to the firm when it should fall due in 1885, thus saving for himself the Boom Company stock which he had put up as collateral. 

Affairs stood thus in the autumn before the year the notes would comedue. The weather had been beautiful. A perpetual summer seemed to haveembalmed the world in its forgetfulness of times and seasons. Navigationremained open through October and into November. No severe storms had asyet swept the lakes. The barge and her two tows had made one more tripthan had been thought possible. It had been the intention to lay themup for the winter, but the weather continued so mild that Orde suggestedthey be laden with a consignment for Jones and Mabley, of Chicago. 

"Did intend to ship by rail, " said he. "They're all 'uppers, ' so itwould pay all right. But we can save all kinds of money by water, andthey ought to skip over there in twelve to fifteen hours. "

Accordingly, the three vessels were laid alongside the wharves at themill, and as fast as possible the selected lumber was passed into theirholds. Orde departed for the woods to start the cutting as soon as thefirst belated snow should fall. 

This condition seemed, however, to delay. During each night it grewcold. The leaves, after their blaze and riot of colour, turned crisp andcrackly and brown. Some of the little, still puddles were filmed withwhat was almost, but not quite ice. A sheen of frost whitened the houseroofs and silvered each separate blade of grass on the lawns. But bynoon the sun, rising red in the veil of smoke that hung low in thesnappy air, had mellowed the atmosphere until it lay on the cheek like acaress. No breath of wind stirred. Sounds came clearly from a distance. Long V-shaped flights of geese swept athwart the sky, very high up, buttheir honking came faintly to the ear. And yet, when the sun, swollento the great dimensions of the rising moon, dipped blood-red through thehaze; the first premonitory tingle of cold warned one that the gratefulwarmth of the day had been but an illusion of a season that had gone. This was not summer, but, in the quaint old phrase, Indian summer, andits end would be as though the necromancer had waved his wand. 

To Newmark, sitting at his desk, reported Captain Floyd of the steambarge NORTH STAR. 

"All loaded by noon, sir, " he said. 

Newmark looked up in surprise. 

"Well, why do you tell me?" he inquired. 

"I want your orders. "

"My orders? Why?"

"This is a bad time of year, " explained Captain Floyd, "and the stormsignal's up. All the signs are right for a blow. "

Newmark whirled in his chair. 

"A blow!" he cried. "What of it? You don't come in every time it blows, do you?"

"You don't know the lakes, sir, at this time of year, " insisted CaptainFloyd. 

"Are you afraid?" sneered Newmark. 

Captain Floyd's countenance burned a dark red. 

"I only want your orders, " was all he said. "I thought we might wait tosee. "

"Then go, " snapped Newmark. "That lumber must get to the market. Youheard Mr. Orde's orders to sail as soon as you were loaded. "

Captain Floyd nodded curtly and went out without further comment. 

Newmark arose and looked out of the window. The sun shone as balmilysoft as ever. English sparrows twittered and fought outside. The warmsmell of pine shingles rose from the street. Only close down to thehorizon lurked cold, flat, greasy-looking clouds; and in the directionof the Government flag-pole he caught the flash of red from the lazilyfloating signal. He was little weatherwise, and he shook his headsceptically. Nevertheless it was a chance, and he took it, as he hadtaken a great many others. 

XXXIV

To Carroll's delight, Orde returned unexpectedly from the woods latethat night. He was so busy these days that she welcomed any chance tosee him. Much to his disappointment, Bobby had been taken duck-huntingby his old friend, Mr. Kincaid. Next morning, however, Orde told Carrollhis stay would be short and that his day would be occupied. 

"I'd take old Prince and get some air, " he advised. "You're too muchindoors. Get some friend and drive around. It's fine and blowy out, andyou'll get some colour in your cheeks. "

After breakfast Carroll accompanied her husband to the front door. Whenthey opened it a blast of air rushed in, whirling some dead leaves withit. 

"I guess the fine weather's over, " said Orde, looking up at the sky. 

A dull lead colour had succeeded the soft gray of the preceding balmydays. The heavens seemed to have settled down closer to the earth. A rising wind whistled through the branches of the big maple trees, snatching the remaining leaves in handfuls and tossing them into theair. The tops swayed like whips. Whirlwinds scurried among the piles ofdead leaves on the lawns, scattering them, chasing them madly around andaround in circles. 

"B-r-r-r!" shivered Carroll. "Winter's coming. "

She kept herself busy about the house all the morning; ate her lunch insolitude. Outside, the fierce wind, rising in a crescendo shriek, howledaround the eaves. The day darkened, but no rain fell. At last Carrollresolved to take her husband's advice. She stopped for Mina Heinzman, and the two walked around to the stable, where the men harnessed oldPrince into the phaeton. 

They drove, the wind at their backs, across the drawbridge, past theship-yards, and out beyond the mills to the Marsh Road. There, on eitherside the causeway, miles and miles of cat-tails and reeds bent andrecovered under the snatches of the wind. Here and there showed glimpsesof ponds or little inlets, the surface of the water ruffled and darkblue. Occasionally one of these bayous swung in across the road. Thenthe two girls could see plainly the fan-like cat's-paws skittering hereand there as though panic-stricken by the swooping, invisible monsterthat pursued them. 

Carroll and Mina Heinzman had a good time. They liked each other verymuch, and always saw a great deal to laugh at in the things about themand in the subjects about which they talked. When, however, they turnedtoward home, they were forced silent by the mighty power of the windagainst them. The tears ran from their eyes as though they were crying;they had to lower their heads. Hardly could Carroll command vision clearenough to see the road along which she was driving. This was reallyunnecessary, for Prince was buffeted to a walk. Thus they crawled alonguntil they reached the turn-bridge, where the right-angled changein direction gave them relief. The river was full of choppy waves, considerable in size. As they crossed, the SPRITE darted beneath them, lowering her smokestack as she went under the bridge. 

They entered Main Street, where was a great banging and clanging ofswinging signs and a few loose shutters. All the sidewalk displays ofvegetables and other goods had been taken in, and the doors, customarilywide open, were now shut fast. This alone lent to the street quite adeserted air, which was emphasised by the fact that actually not a rigof any sort stood at the curbs. Up the empty roadway whirled one afterthe other clouds of dust hurried by the wind. 

"I wonder where all the farmers' wagons are?" marvelled the practicalMina. "Surely they would not stay home Saturday afternoon just for thiswind!"

Opposite Randall's hardware store her curiosity quite mastered her. 

"Do stop!" she urged Carroll. "I want to run in and see what's thematter. "

She was gone but a moment, and returned, her eyes shining withexcitement. 

"Oh, Carroll!" she cried, "there are three vessels gone ashore off thepiers. Everybody's gone to see. "

"Jump in!" said Carroll. "We'll drive out. Perhaps they'll get out thelife-saving crew. "

They drove up the plank road over the sand-hill, through the beechwoods, to the bluff above the shore. In the woods they were somewhatsheltered from the wind, although even there the crash of fallingbranches and the whirl of twigs and dead leaves advertised that thepowers of the air were abroad; but when they topped the last rise, theunobstructed blast from the open Lake hit them square between the eyes. 

Probably a hundred vehicles of all descriptions were hitched to treesjust within the fringe of woods. Carroll, however, drove straight aheaduntil Prince stood at the top of the plank road that led down to thebath houses. Here she pulled up. 

Carroll saw the lake, slate blue and angry, with white-capped billowsto the limit of vision. Along the shore were rows and rows of breakers, leaping, breaking, and gathering again, until they were lost in a tumbleof white foam that rushed and receded on the sands. These did not lookto be very large until she noticed the twin piers reaching out from theriver's mouth. Each billow, as it came in, rose sullenly above them, broke tempestuously to overwhelm the entire structure of their ends, andripped inshore along their lengths, the crest submerging as it ran everyfoot of the massive structures. The piers and the light-houses at theirends looked like little toys, and the compact black crowd of people onthe shore below were as small as Bobby's tin soldiers. 

"Look there--out farther!" pointed Mina. 

Carroll looked, and rose to her feet in excitement. 

Three little toy ships--or so they seemed compared to the mountains ofwater--lay broadside-to, just inside the farthest line of breakers. Twowere sailing schooners. These had been thrown on their beam ends, theirmasts pointing at an angle toward the beach. Each wave, as it reached, stirred them a trifle, then broke in a deluge of water that for a momentcovered their hulls completely from sight. With a mighty suction thebillow drained away, carrying with it wreckage. The third vessel was asteam barge. She, too, was broadside to the seas, but had caught in somehole in the bar so that she lay far down by the head. The shoreward sideof her upper works had, for some freakish reason, given away first, sonow the interior of her staterooms and saloons was exposed to view as inthe cross-section of a model ship. Over her, too, the great waveshurled themselves, each carrying away its spoil. To Carroll it seemedfantastically as though the barge were made of sugar, and that each seamelted her precisely as Bobby loved to melt the lump in his chocolate byraising and lowering it in a spoon. 

And the queer part of it all was that these waves, so mighty in theireffects, appeared to the woman no different from those she had oftenwatched in the light summer blows that for a few hours raise the "whitecaps" on the lake. They came in from the open in the same swift yetdeliberate ranks; they gathered with the same leisurely pauses; theybroke with the same rush and roar. They seemed no larger, but everythingelse had been struck small--the tiny ships, the toy piers, the ant-likeswarm of people on the shore. She looked on it as a spectacle. It had asyet no human significance. 

"Poor fellows!" cried Mina. 

"What?" asked Carroll. 

"Don't you see them?" queried the other. 

Carroll looked, and in the rigging of the schooner she made out a numberof black objects. 

"Are those men?--up the masts?" she cried. 

She set Prince in motion toward the beach. 

At the foot of the bluff the plank road ran out into the deep sand. Through this the phaeton made its way heavily. The fine particles wereblown in the air like a spray, mingling with the spume from the lake, stinging Carroll's face like so many needles. Already the beach wasstrewn with pieces of wreckage, some of it cast high above the wash, others still thrown up and sucked back by each wave, others again risingand falling in the billows. This wreckage constituted a miscellaneousjumble, although most of it was lumber from the deck-loads of thevessels. Intermingled with the split and broken yellow boards were bitsof carving and of painted wood. Carroll saw one piece half buried in thesand which bore in gilt two huge letters, A R. A little farther, bentand twisted, projected the ornamental spear which had pointed the waybefore the steamer's bow. Portions of the usual miscellaneous freightcargo carried on every voyage were scattered along the shore--boxes, barrels, and crates. Five or six men had rolled a whisky barrel beyondthe reach of the water, had broached it, and now were drinking in turnfrom a broken and dingy fragment of a beer-schooner. They were verydirty; their hair had fallen over their eyes, which were bloodshot;the expression of their faces was imbecile. As the phaeton passed, theyhailed its occupants in thick voices, shouting against the wind maudlininvitations to drink. 

The crowd gathered at the pier comprised fully half the population ofMonrovia. It centred about the life saving crew, whose mortar wasbeing loaded. A stove-in lifeboat mutely attested the failure of otherefforts. The men worked busily, ramming home the powder sack, placingthe projectile with the light line attached, attending that the reel ranfreely. Their chief watched the seas and winds through his glasses. Whenthe preparations were finished, he adjusted the mortar, and pulledthe string. Carroll had seen this done in practice. Now, with therecollection of that experience in mind, she was astonished at thefeeble report of the piece, and its freedom from the dense white cloudsof smoke that should have enveloped it. The wind snatched both noise andvapour away almost as soon as they were born. The dart with its trailerof line rose on a long graceful curve. The reel sang. Every member ofthe crowd unconsciously leaned forward in attention. But the resistanceof the wind and the line early made itself felt. Slower and slowerhummed the reel. There came a time when the missile seemed to hesitate, then fairly to stand in equilibrium. Finally, in an increasingly abruptcurve, it descended into the sea. By a good three hundred yards the shothad failed to carry the line over the vessels. 

"There's Mr. Bradford, " said Carroll, waving her hand. "I wish he'd comeand tell us something about it. "

The banjo-playing village Brummell saw the signal and came, his facegrave. 

"Couldn't they get the lifeboats out to them?" asked Carroll as heapproached. 

"You see that one, " said Bradford, pointing. "Well, the other's inkindling wood farther up the beach. "

"Anybody drowned?" asked Mina quickly. 

"No, we got 'em out. Mr. Cam's shoulder is broken. " He glanced down athimself comically, and the girls for the first time noticed that beneaththe heavy overcoat his garments were dripping. 

"But surely they'll never get a line over with the mortar!" saidCarroll. "That last shot fell so far short!"

"They know it. They've shot a dozen times. Might as well do something. "

"I should think, " said Mina, "that they'd shoot from the end of thepier. They'd be ever so much nearer. "

"Tried it, " replied Bradford succinctly. "Nearly lost the wholebusiness. "

Nobody said anything for some time, but all looked helplessly to wherethe vessels--from this elevation insignificant among the tumblingwaters--were pounding to pieces. 

At this moment from the river a trail of black smoke became visible overthe point of sand-hill that ran down to the pier. A smokestack dartedinto view, slowed down, and came to rest well inside the river-channel. There it rose and fell regularly under the influence of the swell thatswung in from the lake. The crowd uttered a cheer, and streamed in thedirection of the smokestack. 

"Come and see what's up, " suggested Bradford. 

He hitched Prince to a log sticking up at an angle from the sand, andled the way to the pier. 

There they had difficulty in getting close enough to see; but Bradford, preceding the two women, succeeded by patience and diplomacy in forcinga way. The SPRITE was lying close under the pier, the top of herpilot-house just about level with the feet of the people watchingher. She rose and fell with the restless waters. Fat rope-yarn bumpersinterposed between her sides and the piling. The pilot-house was empty, but Harvey, the negro engineer, leaned, elbows crossed against the sillof his little square door, smoking his pipe. 

"I wouldn't go out there for a million dollars!" cried a man excitedlyto Carroll and Bradford. "Nothing on earth could live in that sea!Nothing! I've run a tug myself in my time, and I know what I'm talkingabout!"

"What are they going to do?" asked Carroll. 

"Haven't you heard!" cried the other, turning to her. "Where you been?This is one of Orde's tugs, and she's going to try to get a line to themvessels. But I wouldn't--"

Bradford did not wait for him to finish. He turned abruptly, and with anair of authority brushed toward the tug, followed closely by Carroll andMina. At the edge of the pier was the tug's captain, Marsh, listeningto earnest expostulation by a half-dozen of the leading men of the town, among whom were both Newmark and Orde. 

As the three came within earshot Captain Marsh spit forth the stump ofcigar he had been chewing. 

"Gentlemen, " said he crisply, "that isn't the question. I think I cando it; and I'm entirely willing to take all personal risks. The thing ishazardous and it's Mr. Orde's tug. It's for him to say whether he wantsto risk her. "

"Good Lord, man, what's the tug in a case like this!" cried Orde, who was standing near. Carroll looked at him proudly, but she did notattempt to make her presence known. 

"I thought so, " replied Captain Marsh. "So it's settled. I'll take herout, if I can get a crew. Harvey, step up here!"

The engineer slowly hoisted his long figure through the breast-highdoorway, dragged his legs under him, then with extraordinary agilityswung to the pier, his teeth shining like ivory in his black face. 

"Yas, suh!" said he. 

"Harvey, " said Captain Marsh briskly, "we're going to try to get a lineaboard those vessels out there. It's dangerous. You don't have to go ifyou don't want to. Will you go?"

Harvey removed his cap and scratched his wool. The grin faded from hisgood-natured countenance. 

"You-all goin', suh?" he asked. 

"Of course. "

"I reckon I'll done haif to go, too, " said Harvey simply. Withoutfurther word he swung lightly back to the uneasy craft below him, andbegan to toss the slabs from the deck into the hold. 

"I want a man with me at the wheel, two to handle the lines, and one tofire for Harvey, " said Captain Marsh to the crowd in general. 

"That's our job, " announced the life-saving captain. 

"Well, come on then. No use in delay, " said Captain Marsh. 

The four men from the life-saving service dropped aboard. The five thenwent over the tug from stem to stern, tossing aside all movables, and lashing tight all essentials. From the pilot-house Captain Marshdistributed life preservers. Harvey declined his. 

"Whaf-for I want dat?" he inquired. "Lots of good he gwine do me downhere!"

Then all hatches were battened down. Captain Marsh reached up to shakethe hand which Orde, stooping, offered him. 

"I'll try to bring her back all right, sir, " said he. 

"To hell with the tug!" cried Orde, impatient at this insistence on themere property aspect. "Bring yourself back. "

Captain Marsh deliberately lit another cigar and entered the pilot-housewith the other men. 

"Cast off!" he cried; and the silent crowd heard clearly the singlesharp bell ringing for attention, and then the "jangler" that called forfull speed ahead. Awed, they watched the tiny sturdy craft move out intothe stream and point to the fury of the open lake. 

"Brave chaps! Brave chaps!" said Dr. McMullen to Carroll as they turnedaway. The physician drew his tall slender figure to its height. "Bravechaps, every one of them. But, do you know, to my mind, the bravest ofthem all are that nigger--and his fireman--nailed down in the hold wherethey can't see nor know what's going on, and if--if--" the good doctorblew his nose vigorously five or six times--"well, it's just like a ratin a hole. " He shook his head vigorously and looked out to sea. "I readlast evening, sir, " said he to Bradford, "in a blasted fool medicaljournal I take, that the race is degenerating. Good God!"

The tug had rounded the end of the pier. The first of her thousandenemies, sweeping in from the open, had struck her fair. A great sheetof white water, slanting back and up, shot with terrific impact againstthe house and beyond. For an instant the little craft seemed buried;but almost immediately the gleam of her black hull showed her plungingforward dauntlessly. 

"That's nothin'!" said the tug captain who had first spoken. "Wait 'tilshe gets outside!" The watchers streamed down from the pier for a betterview. Carroll and Miss Heinzman followed. They saw the staunch littlecraft drive into three big seas, each of which appeared to bury hercompletely, save for her upper works. She managed, however, to keep herheadway. 

"She can stand that, all right, " said one of the life-saving crew whohad been watching her critically. "The trouble will come when she dropsdown to the vessels. "

In spite of the heavy smashing of head-on seas the SPRITE held hercourse straight out. 

"Where's she going, anyway?" marvelled little Mr. Smith, the stationer. "She's away beyond the wrecks already. "

"Probably Marsh has found the seas heavier than he thought and is afraidto turn her broadside, " guessed his companion. 

"Afraid, hell!" snorted a riverman who overheard. 

Nevertheless the SPRITE was now so distant that the loom of the greatseas on the horizon swallowed her from view, save when she rose on thecrest of some mighty billow. 

"Well, what is he doing 'way out there then?" challenged Mr. Smith'sfriend with some asperity. 

"Do'no, " replied the riverman, "but whatever it is, it's all right aslong as Buck Marsh is at the wheel. "

"There, she's turned now, " Mr. Smith interposed. 

Beneath the trail of black smoke she had shifted direction. And thenwith startling swiftness the SPRITE darted out of the horizon into fullview. For the first time the spectators realised the size and weight ofthe seas. Not even the sullen pounding to pieces of the vessels on thebar had so impressed them as the sight of the tug coasting with railroadspeed down the rush of a comber like a child's toy-boat in the surf. Onemoment the whole of her deck was visible as she was borne with the wave;the next her bow alone showed high as the back suction caught her anddragged her from the crest into the hollow. A sea rose behind. Nothingof the tug was to be seen. It seemed that no power or skill couldprevent her feeling overwhelmed. Yet somehow always she staggered outof the gulf until she caught the force of the billow and was again castforward like a chip. 

"Maybe they ain't catchin' p'ticular hell at that wheel to hold her fromyawing!" muttered the tug captain to his neighbour, who happened to beMr. Duncan, the minister. 

Almost before Carroll had time to see that the little craft was comingin, she had arrived at the outer line of breakers. Here the combers, dragged by the bar underneath, crested, curled over, and fell with aroar, just as in milder weather the surf breaks on the beach. When theSPRITE rushed at this outer line of white-water, a woman in the crowdscreamed. 

But at the edge of destruction the SPRITE came to a shuddering stop. Herpowerful propellers had been set to the reverse. They could not holdher against the forward fling of the water, but what she lost thus sheregained on the seaward slopes of the waves and in their hollows. Thusshe hovered on the edge of the breakers, awaiting her chance. 

As long as the seas rolled in steadily, and nothing broke, she was safe. But if one of the waves should happen to crest and break, as many ofthem did, the weight of water catching the tug on her flat, broad sterndeck would indubitably bury her. The situation was awful in its extremesimplicity. Would Captain Marsh see his opportunity before the law ofchances would bring along the wave that would overwhelm him?

A realisation of the crisis came to the crowd on the beach. At oncethe terrible strain of suspense tugged at their souls. Each conductedhimself according to his nature. The hardy men of the river andthe woods set their teeth until the cheek muscles turned white, andblasphemed softly and steadily. Two or three of the townsmen walked upand down the space of a dozen feet. One, the woman who had screamed, prayed aloud in short hysterical sentences. 

"O God! Save them, O Lord! O Lord!"

Orde stood on top of a half-buried log, his hat in his hand, hisentire being concentrated on the manoeuvre being executed. Only Newmarkapparently remained as calm as ever, leaning against an upright timber, his arms folded, and an unlighted cigar as usual between his lips. 

Methodically every few moments he removed his eyeglasses and wiped thelenses free of spray. 

Suddenly, without warning, occurred one of those inexplicable lulls thatinterpose often amid the wildest uproars. For the briefest instant othersounds than the roar of the wind and surf were permitted the multitudeon the beach. They heard the grinding of timbers from the strickenships, and the draining away of waters. And distinctly they heard thefaint, far tinkle of the jangler calling again for "full speed ahead. "

Between two waves the SPRITE darted forward directly for the nearest ofthe wrecks. Straight as an arrow's flight she held until from the crowdwent up a groan. 

"She'll collide!" some one put it into words. 

But at the latest moment the tug swerved, raced past, and turned on along diagonal across the end of the bar toward the piers. 

Captain Marsh had chosen his moment with exactitude. To the utmost hehad taken advantage of the brief lull of jumbled seas after the "threelargest waves" had swept by. Yet in shallow water and with the stronginshore set, even that lull was all too short. The SPRITE was staggeredby the buffets of the smaller breakers; her speed was checked, her sternwas dragged around. For an instant it seemed that the back suction wouldhold her in its grip. She tore herself from the grasp of the current. Enveloped in a blinding hail of spray she struggled desperately toextricate herself from the maelstrom in which she was involved beforethe resumption of the larger seas should roll her over and over todestruction. 

Already these larger seas were racing in from the open. To Carroll, watching breathless and wide-eyed in that strange passive and receptivestate peculiar to imaginative natures, they seemed alive. And theSPRITE, too, appeared to be, not a fabric and a mechanism controlled bymen, but a sentient creature struggling gallantly on her own volition. 

Far out in the lake against the tumbling horizon she saw heave up fora second the shoulder of a mighty wave. And instinctively she perceivedthis wave as a deadly enemy of the little tug, and saw it bending allits great energies to hurrying in on time to catch the victim before itcould escape. To this wave she gave all her attention, watching forit after it had sunk momentarily below its fellows, recognising itinstantly as it rose again. The spasms of dismay and relief among thecrowd about her she did not share at all. The crises they indicated didnot exist for her. Until the wave came in, Carroll knew, the SPRITE, no matter how battered and tossed, would be safe. Her whole being wasconcentrated in a continually shifting calculation of the respectivedistances between the tug and the piers, the tug and the relentlesslyadvancing wave. 

"Oh, go!" she exhorted the SPRITE under her breath. 

Then the crowd, too, caught with its slower perceptions the importof the wave. Carroll felt the electric thrill of apprehension shiverthrough it. Huge and towering, green and flecked with foam the wave cameon now calmly and deliberately as though sure. The SPRITE was off theend of the pier when the wave lifted her, just in the position her enemywould have selected to crush her life out against the cribs. Slowly thetug rose against its shoulder, was lifted onward, poised; and thenwith a swift forward thrust the wave broke, smothering the pier andlighthouse beneath tons of water. 

A low, agonised wail broke from the crowd. And then--and then--overbeyond the pier down which the wave, broken and spent but formidablestill, was ripping its way, they saw gliding a battered black stack fromwhich still poured defiantly clouds of gray smoke. 

For ten seconds the spectators could not believe their eyes. They haddistinctly seen the SPRITE caught between a resistless wall of waterand the pier; where she should have been crushed like the proverbialegg-shell. Yet there she was--or her ghost. 

Then a great cheer rose up against the wind. The crowd went crazy. Mereacquaintances hugged each other and danced around and around throughthe heavy sands. Several women had hysterics. The riverman next to Mr. Duncan opened his mouth and swore so picturesquely that, as he afterwardtold his chum, "I must've been plumb inspired for the occasion. " Yet itnever entered Mr. Duncan's ministerial head to reprove the blasphemy. Orde jumped down from his half-buried log and clapped his hat on hishead. Newmark did not alter his attitude nor his expression. 

The SPRITE was safe. For the few moments before she glided the length ofthe long pier to stiller water this fact sufficed. 

"I wonder if she got the line aboard, " speculated the tug-boat captainat last. 

The crowd surged over to the piers again. Below them rose and fell theSPRITE. All the fancy scroll-work of her upper works, the cornice of herdeck house, the light rigging of her cabin had disappeared, leaving rawand splintered wood to mark their attachments. The tall smokestackwas bent awry, but its supports had held, which was fortunate sinceotherwise the fires would have been drowned out. At the moment, CaptainMarsh was bending over examining a bad break in the overhang--the onlymaterial damage the tug had sustained. 

At sight of him the crowd set up a yell. He paid no attention. One ofthe life-saving men tossed a mooring line ashore. It was seized by adozen men. Then for the first time somebody noticed that although thetug had come to a standstill, her screw was still turning slowly overand over, holding her against the erratic strong jerking of a slenderrope that ran through her stern chocks and into the water. 

"He got it aboard!" yelled the man, pointing. 

Another cheer broke out. The life-saving crew leaped to the deck. They were immediately followed by a crowd of enthusiasts eager tocongratulate and question. But Captain Marsh would have none of them. 

"Get off my tug!" he shouted. "Do you want to swamp her? What do yousuppose we put that line aboard for? Fun? Get busy and use it! Rescuethat crew now!"

Abashed, the enthusiasts scrambled back. The life-saving crew tookcharge. It was necessary to pass the line around the end of the pierand back to the beach. This was a dangerous job, and one requiringconsiderable power and ingenuity, for the strain on the line imposedby the waters was terrific; and the breaking seas rendered work on thepiers extremely hazardous. However, the life-saving captain took chargeconfidently enough. His crew began to struggle out the pier, whilevolunteers, under his personal direction, manipulated the reel. 

A number of the curious lingered about the SPRITE. Marsh and Orde werein consultation over the smashed stern, and did not look as though theycared to be disturbed. Harvey leaned out his little square door. 

"Don' know nuffin 'bout it, " said he, "'ceptin' she done rolled 'wayover 'bout foh times. Yass she did, suh! I know. I felt her doin' it. "

"No, " he answered a query. "I wasn't what you-all would call scairt, that is, not really SCAIRT--jess a little ne'vous. All I had to do wasto feed her slabs and listen foh my bell. You see, Cap'n Ma'sh, he wasin cha'ge. "

"No, sir, " Captain Marsh was saying emphatically to his employer. "I can't figure it out except on one thing. You see it's stove fromUNDERNEATH. A sea would have smashed it from above. "

"Perhaps you grounded in between seas out there, " suggested Orde. 

Marsh smiled grimly. 

"I reckon I'd have known it, " said he. "No, sir! It sounds wild, butit's the only possible guess. That last sea must've lifted us bodilyright over the corner of the pier. "

"Well--maybe, " assented Orde doubtfully. 

"Sure thing, " repeated Marsh with conviction. 

"Well, you'd better not tell 'em so unless you want to rank in with OldMan Ananias, " ended Orde. "It was a good job. Pretty dusty out there, wasn't it?"

"Pretty dusty, " grinned Marsh. 

They turned away together and were at once pounced on by Leopold LincolnBunn, the local reporter, a callow youth aflame with the chance for abig story of more than local interest. 

"Oh, Captain Marsh!" he cried. "How did you get around the pier? Itlooked as though the wave had you caught. "

Orde glanced at his companion in curiosity. 

"On roller skates, " replied Marsh. 

Leopold tittered nervously. 

"Could you tell me how you felt when you were out there in the worst ofit?" he inquired. 

"Oh, hell!" said Marsh grumpily, stalking away. 

"Don't interview for a cent, does he?" grinned Orde. 

"Oh, Mr. Orde! Perhaps you--"

"Don't you think we'd better lend a hand below?" suggested Orde, pointing to the beach. 

The wild and picturesque work of rescue was under way. The line hadbeen successfully brought to the left of the lighthouse. To it had beenattached the rope, and to that the heavy cable. These the crew of theschooner had dragged out and made fast to a mast. The shore end passedover a tall scissors. When the cable was tightened the breeches buoy wasput into commission, and before long the first member of the crew washauled ashore, plunging in and out of the waves as the rope tightened orslackened. He was a flaxen-haired Norwegian, who stamped his feet, shookhis body and grinned comically at those about him. He accepted withequanimity a dozen drinks of whisky thrust at him from all sides, swigged a mug of the coffee a few practical women were making overan open fire, and opposed to Leopold Lincoln Bunn's frantic efforts astolid and baffling density. Of none of these attentions did he seem tostand in especial need. 

The crew and its volunteers worked quickly. When the last man had comeashore, the captain of the life-saving service entered the breeches buoyand caused himself to be hauled through the smother to the wreck. Afteran interval, a signal jerked back. The buoy was pulled in empty and thesurf car substituted. In it were piled various utensils of equipment. One man went with it, and several more on its next trip, until nearlythe whole crew were aboard the wreck. 

Carroll and Mina stayed until dusk and after, watching the long heavylabour of rescue. Lines had to be rocketed from the schooner to theother vessels. Then by their means cable communication had to beestablished with the shore. After this it was really a matter of routineto run the crew to the beach, though cruel, hard work, and dangerous. The wrecks were continually swept by the great seas; and at any momentthe tortured fabrics might give way, might dissolve completely in theelements that so battered them. The women making the hot coffee foundtheir services becoming valuable. Big fires of driftwood were ignited. They were useful for light as well as warmth. 

By their illumination finally Orde discovered the two girls standing, and paused long enough in his own heavy labour of assistance to drawCarroll one side. 

"You'd better go home now, sweetheart, " said he. "Bobby'll be waitingfor you, and the girls may be here in the crowd somewhere. There'll benobody to take care of him. "

"I suppose so, " she assented. "But hasn't it been exciting? Whosevessels were they; do you know?"

Orde glanced at her strangely. 

"They were ours, " said he. 

She looked up at him, catching quickly the wrinkles of his brow and theharassed anxiety in his eyes. Impulsively she pulled him down to her andkissed him. 

"Never mind, dear, " said she. "I care only if you do. "

She patted his great shoulders lightly and smiled up at him. 

"Run, help!" she cried. "And come home as soon as you can. I'll havesomething nice and hot all ready for you. "

She turned away, the smile still on her lips; but as soon as she was outof sight, her face fell grave. 

"Come, Mina!" she said to the younger girl. "Time to go. "

They toiled through the heavy sand to where, hours ago, they had leftPrince. That faithful animal dozed in his tracks and awoke reluctantly. 

Carroll looked back. The fires leaped red and yellow. Against themwere the silhouettes of people, and in the farther circle of theirillumination were more people cast in bronze that flickered red. Incontrast to their glow the night was very dark. Only from the lake theredisengaged a faint gray light where the waters broke. The strength ofthe failing wind still lifted the finer particles of sand. The organ ofthe pounding surf filled the night with the grandeur of its music. 

XXXV

Orde mounted the office stairs next day with a very heavy step. The lossof the NORTH STAR and of the two schooners meant a great deal to him atthat time. 

"It kicks us into somewhat of a hole, " he grumbled to Newmark. 

"A loss is never pleasant, " replied the latter, "and it puts us out ofthe carrying business for awhile. But we're insured. "

"I can't understand why Floyd started, " said Orde. "He ought to knowbetter than to face sure prospects of a fall blow. I'll tan his soul forthat, all right!"

"I'm afraid I'm partly responsible for his going, " put in Newmark. 

"You!" cried Orde. 

"Yes. You see that Smith and Mabley shipment was important enoughto strain a point for--and it's only twenty-four hours or so--and itcertainly didn't look to see me as if it were going to blow very soon. Poor Floyd feels bad enough. He's about sick. "

Orde for the first time began to appreciate the pressure of hiscircumstances. The loss on the cargo of "uppers" reached about 8, 000, 000feet; which represented $20, 000 in money. As for the NORTH STAR and herconsorts, save for the insurance, they were simply eliminated. They hadrepresented property. Now they were gone. The loss of $60, 000 or so onthem, however, did not mean a diminution of the company's present cashresources to that amount; and so did not immediately affect Orde'scalculations as to the payment of the notes which were now soon to comedue. 

At this time the woods work increasingly demanded his attention. He disappeared for a week, his organising abilities claimed for thedistribution of the road crews. When he returned to the office, Newmark, with an air of small triumph, showed him contracts for the constructionof three new vessels. 

"I get them for $55, 000, " said he, "with $30, 000 of it on long time. "

"Without consulting me!" cried Orde. 

Newmark explained carefully that the action, seemingly so abrupt, hadreally been taking advantage of a lucky opportunity. 

"Otherwise, " he finished, "we shouldn't have been able to get thejob done for another year, at least. If that big Cronin contract goesthrough--well, you know what that would mean in the shipyards--nobodywould get even a look-in. And McLeod is willing, in the meantime, togive us a price to keep his men busy. So you see I had to close at once. You can see what a short chance it was. "

"It's a good chance, all right, " admitted Orde; "but--why--that is, I thought perhaps we'd job our own freighting for awhile--it neveroccurred to me we'd build any more vessels until we'd recovered alittle. "

"Recovered, " Newmark repeated coldly. "I don't see what 'recovered' hasto do with it. If the mill burned down, we'd rebuild, wouldn't we? Evenif we were embarrassed--which we're not--we'd hardly care to acknowledgepublicly that we couldn't keep up our equipment. And as we're makingtwelve or fifteen thousand a year out of our freighting, it seems to metoo good a business to let slip into other hands. "

"I suppose so, " agreed Orde, a trifle helplessly. 

"Therefore I had to act without you, " Newmark finished. "I knew you'dagree. That's right: isn't it?" he insisted. 

"Yes, that's right, " agreed Orde drearily. 

"You'll find copies of the contract on your desk, " Newmark closed thematter. "And there's the tax lists. I wish you'd run them over. "

"Joe, " replied Orde, "I--I don't think I'll stay down town this morning. I--"

Newmark glanced up keenly. 

"You don't look a bit well, " said he; "kind of pale around the gills. Bilious. Don't believe that camp grub quite agrees with you for a steadydiet. "

"Yes, that must be it, " assented Orde. 

He closed his desk and went out. Newmark turned back to his papers. Hisface was expressionless. From an inner pocket he produced a cigar whichhe thrust between his teeth. The corners of his mouth slowly curved in agrim smile. 

Orde did not go home. Instead, he walked down Main Street to the dockswhere he jumped into a rowboat lying in a slip, and with a few rapidstrokes shot out on the stream. In his younger days he had belonged toa boat club, and had rowed in the "four. " He still loved the oar, andthough his racing days were past, he maintained a clean-lined, ratherunstable little craft which it was his delight to propel rapidly withlong spoon-oars whenever he needed exercise. To-day, however, he wascontent to drift. 

The morning was still and golden. The crispness of late fall had infuseda wine into the air. The sky was a soft, blue-gray; the sand-hillswere a dazzling yellow. Orde did not try to think; he merely faced thesituation, staring it in the face until it should shrink to its truesignificance. 

One thing he felt distinctly; yet could not without a struggle bringhimself to see. The California lands must be mortgaged. If he couldraise a reasonable sum of money on them, he would still be perfectlyable to meet his notes. He hated fiercely to raise that money. 

It was entirely a matter of sentiment. Orde realised the fact clearly, and browbeat his other self with a savage contempt. Nevertheless hisdream had been to keep the western timber free and unencumbered--forBobby. Dreams are harder to give up than realities. 

He fell into the deepest reflections which were broken only when thepounding of surf warned him he had drifted almost to the open lake. After all, there was no essential difference between owing money to aman in Michigan and to a man in California. That was the net result ofhis struggle. 

"When the time comes, we'll just borrow that money on a long-timemortgage, like sensible people, " he said aloud, "and quit thiseverlasting scrabbling. "

Back to town he pulled with long vigorous strokes, skittering hisfeathered spoon-oars lightly over the tops of the wavelets. At the sliphe made fast the boat, and a few minutes later re-entered the office, his step springy, his face glowing. Newmark glanced up. 

"Hullo!" said he. "Back again? You look better. "

"Exercise, " said Orde, in his hearty manner. "Exercise, old boy! Youought to try it. Greatest thing in the world. Just took a row to the endof the piers and back, and I'm as fit as a fiddle!"

XXXVI

Orde immediately set into motion the machinery of banking to borrow onthe California timber. Taylor took charge of this, as the only man inMonrovia who had Orde's confidence. At the end of a necessary delay Ordereceived notice that the West had been heard from. He stepped across thehall to the lawyer's office. 

"Well, Frank, " said he, "glad we managed to push it through with solittle trouble. "

Taylor arose, shut carefully the door into his outer office, walkedto the window, looked contemplatively out upon the hotel backyard, andreturned to his desk. 

"But there is trouble, " said he curtly. 

"What's the matter?" asked Orde. 

"The banks refuse the loan. "

Orde stared at him in blank astonishment. 

"Refuse!" he echoed. 

"Absolutely. "

"What grounds can they possibly have for that?"

"I can't make out exactly from these advices. It's something about thetitle. "

"But I thought you went over the title. "

"I did, " stated Taylor emphatically; "and I'll stake my reputation asa lawyer that everything is straight and clear from the Land Officeitself. I've wired for an explanation; and we ought surely to knowsomething definite by tomorrow. "

With this uncertainty Orde was forced to be content. For the first timein his business career a real anxiety gnawed at his vitals. He had beenin many tight places; but somehow heretofore success or failure hadseemed to him about immaterial, like points gained or conceded in thegame; a fresh start was always so easy, and what had been already won asyet unreal. Now the game itself was at issue. Property, reputation, andthe family's future were at stake. When the three had lived in the tinyhouse by the church, it had seemed that no adversity could touch them. But now that long use had accustomed them to larger quarters, servants, luxuries, Orde could not conceive the possibility of Carroll's everreturning to that simplest existence. Carroll could have told himotherwise; but of course he did not as yet bring the possibility beforeher. She had economised closely, these last few years. Orde was proudof her. He was also fiercely resentful that his own foolishness, oruntoward circumstances, or a combination of both should jeopardise herfuture. Therefore he awaited further news with the greatest impatience. 

The message came the following day, as Taylor had predicted. Taylorhanded it to him without comment. 

"Land Office under investigation, " Orde read. "Fraudulent entriessuspected. All titles clouded until decision is reached. "

"What do you suppose that means?" asked Orde, although he knew wellenough. 

Taylor glanced up at his dull eyes with commiseration. 

"They simply won't lend good money on an uncertainty, " said he. 

"Frank, " said Orde, rousing himself with an effort, "I've got to behere. I couldn't get away this winter if my life depended on it. And Iwon't even have time to pay much attention to it from here. I want youto go to California and look after those interests for me. Never mindyour practice, man, " as Taylor tried to interrupt him. "Make whatarrangements you please; but go. It'll be like a sort of vacation toyou. You need one. And I'll make it worth your while. Take Clarawith you. She'll like California. Now don't say no. It's important. Straighten it out as quick as you can: and the minute it IS straightborrow that money on it, and send it on p. D. Q. "

Taylor thoughtfully tapped his palm with the edge of his eye-glasses. 

"All right, " he said at last. 

"Good!" cried Orde, rising and holding out his hand. 

He descended the dark stairs to the street, where he turned down towardthe river. There he sat on a pile for nearly an hour, quite oblivious tothe keen wind of latter November which swept up over the scum ice fromthe Lake. At length he hopped down and made his way to the office of theWelton Lumber Co. 

"Look here, Welton, " he demanded abruptly when he had reached thatoperator's private office, "how much of a cut are you going to make thisyear?"

"About twenty million, " replied Welton. "Why?"

"Just figuring on the drive, " said Orde, nodding a farewell. 

He had the team harnessed, and, assuming his buffalo-fur coat, drove tothe offices of all the men owning timber up and down the river. When hehad collected his statistics, he returned to his desk, where he filledthe backs of several envelopes with his characteristically minutefigures. At the close of his calculations he nodded his head vigorouslyseveral times. 

"Joe, " he called across to his partner, "I'm going to cut that wholeforty million we have left. "

Newmark did not turn. After a moment his dry expressionless voice cameback. 

"I thought that we figured that as a two-years' job. "

"We did, but I'm going to clean up the whole thing this year. "

"Do you think you can do it?"

"Sure thing, " replied Orde. Then under his breath, and quite to himself, he added: "I've got to!"

XXXVII

The duel had now come to grapples. Orde was fighting for his very life. The notes given by Newmark and Orde would come due by the beginning ofthe following summer. Before that time Orde must be able to meet thempersonally, or, as by the agreement with Newmark, his stock in the BoomCompany would be turned in to the firm. This would, of course, spellnearly a total loss of it, as far as Orde was concerned. 

The chief anxiety under which the riverman laboured, however, wasthe imminent prospect of losing under the mortgage all the NorthernPeninsula timber. He had thought that the firm would be able to step infor its redemption, even if he personally found himself unable tomeet the obligation. Three hundred million feet would seem to be tooimportant a matter to let go under so small a mortgage. Now as the timeapproached, he realised that if he could not pay the notes, the firmwould certainly be unable to do so. What with the second mortgage, due two years later, and to be met by Newmark; with the outstandingobligations; with the new enterprise of the vessels ordered from DuncanMcLeod, Newmark and Orde would be unable to raise anything like thenecessary amount. To his personal anxieties Orde added a deep and bitterself-reproach at having involved his partner in what amounted to a totalloss. 

Spurred doubly by these considerations, then, he fell upon the woodswork with unparalleled ferocity. A cut and sale of the forty millionfeet remaining of the firm's up-river holdings, together with the tollsto be collected for driving the river that spring would, if everythingwent right and no change in the situation took place, bring Orde throughthe venture almost literally by "the skin of his teeth. " To cut fortymillion feet, even in these latter days of improvements then unknown, would be a task to strain to the utmost every resource of energy, pluck, equipment and organisation. In 1880-81 the operators on the riverlaughed good-humouredly over an evident madness. 

Nevertheless Orde accomplished the task. To be sure he was largelyhelped by a favourable winter. The cold weather came early and continuedlate. Freezing preceded the snow, which was deep enough for goodtravoying and to assure abundant freshet water in the spring, but nottoo deep to interfere with the work. Orde increased his woods force;and, contrary to his custom, he drove them mercilessly. He was thatwinter his own walking-boss, and lived constantly in the woods. TheRough Red had charge of the banking, where his aggressive, brutalpersonality kept the rollways free from congestion. For congestion theremeans delay in unloading the sleighs; and that in turn means a drag inthe woods work near the skidways at the other end of the line. Tom Northand Tim Nolan and Johnny Sims and Jim Denning were foremen back in theforest. Every one had an idea, more or less vague, that the Old Fellowhad his back to the wall. Late into the night the rude torches, madequite simply from brown stone jugs full of oil and with wicks in theirnecks, cast their flickering glare over the ice of the haul-roads. Andthough generally in that part of Michigan the thaws begin by the firstor second week in March, this year zero weather continued even to theeighth of April. When the drive started, far up toward headwaters, thecut was banked for miles along the stream, forty million feet of it tothe last timber. 

The strain over, Orde slept the clock around and awoke to the furtherbut familiar task of driving the river. He was very tired; but hisspirit was at peace. As always after the event, he looked back on hisanxieties with a faint amusement over their futility. 

From Taylor he had several communications. The lawyer confessed himselfbaffled as to the purpose and basis of the Land Office investigation. The whole affair appeared to be tangled in a maze of technicalities anda snarl of red-tape which it would take some time to unravel. In themeantime Taylor was enjoying himself; and was almost extravagant in hisdelight over the climate and attractions of Southern California. 

Orde did not much care for this delay. He saw his way clear to meetinghis obligations without the necessity of hypothecating the Californiatimber; and was the better pleased for it. With the break-up of springhe started confidently with the largest drive in the history of theriver, a matter of over two hundred million feet. 

This tremendous mass of timber moved practically in three sections. Thefirst, and smallest, comprised probably thirty millions. It startedfrom the lowermost rollways on the river, drove rapidly through themore unobstructed reaches, and was early pocketed above Monrovia inthe Company's distributing booms. The second and largest section of ahundred million came from the main river and its largest tributaries. Ittoo made a safe drive; and was brought to rest in the main booms and ina series of temporary or emergency booms built along the right bank andupstream from the main works. The third section containing a remainderof about seventy million had by the twenty-sixth of June reached theslack water above the city of Redding. 

XXXVIII

The morning of June twenty-sixth dawned clear. Orde was early on theroad before the heat of the day. He drove his buckboard rapidly over thetwelve miles that separated his home from the distributing booms, for hewanted at once to avoid the heat of the first sun and to arrive at thecommencement of the day's work. After a glance at the river, he enteredthe tiny office and set about the examination of the tally sheets leftby the foreman. While he was engaged in this checking, the foreman, TomNorth, entered. 

"The river's rising a little"? he remarked conversationally as hereached for the second set of tally boards. 

"You're crazy, " muttered Orde, without looking up. "It's clear as abell; and there have been no rains reported from anywhere. "

"It's rising a little, just the same, " insisted North, going out. 

An hour later Orde, having finished his clerical work, walked out overthe booms. The water certainly had risen; and considerably at that. Adecided current sucked through the interstices in the piling. The pennedlogs moved uneasily. 

"I should think it was rising!" said Orde to himself, as he watched theslowly moving water. "I wonder what's up. It can't be merely those rainsthree days ago. "

He called one of the younger boys to him, Jimmy Powers by name. 

"Here, Jimmy, " said he, "mark one of these piles and keep track of howfast the water rises. "

For some time the river remained stationary, then resumed its slowincrease. Orde shook his head. 

"I don't like June floods, " he told Tom North. "A fellow can understandan ordinary spring freshet, and knows about how far it will go; butthese summer floods are so confounded mysterious. I can't figure outwhat's struck the old stream, unless they're having almighty heavy rainsup near headwaters. "

By three o'clock in the afternoon Jimmy Powers reported a rise sincemorning of six inches. The current had proportionately increased inpower. 

"Tom, " said Orde to the old riverman, "I'm going to send Marsh down forthe pile-drivers and some cable. The barge company has some fifteen inchmanilla. "

North laughed. 

"What in blazes do you expect to do with that?" he inquired. 

"We may need them, " Orde stated with conviction. "Everything's safeenough now; and probably will continue so; but I can't afford to takechances. If those logs ever break through they'll go on out to LakeMichigan and there they wouldn't be worth the salvage. "

Tom North stared at his principal in surprise. 

"That's a mighty long chance, " he commented. "Never knew you to come sonear croaking before, Jack. "

"If this drive goes out, it surely busts me, " replied Orde, "and I'm nottaking even long chances. "

Captain Marsh, returning with the SPRITE, brought an evening paperand news from the telegraph offices. A cloudburst in the China Creekdistrict followed by continued heavy rains was responsible for theincreased water. The papers mentioned this only incidentally, and inexplanation. Their columns were filled with an account of the big logjam that had formed above the iron railroad bridge. The planing mill'sbooms had given way under pressure and the contents had piled downstream against the buttresses. Before steps could be taken to clear theway, the head of the drive, hurried by the excess water, had piled in ontop. Immediately a jam formed, increasing in weight each moment, untilpractically the entire third section had piled up back of the bridge. 

The papers occupied themselves with the picturesque side of the affair. None expressed any anxiety as to the bridge. It was a new structure, each of whose bents weighed over a hundred tons. A fall of a few inchesonly would suffice to lock the jam solidly, thus relieving whateverpressure the mass exerted against the iron bridge. That the water wouldshortly go down was of course inevitable at this time of year. It wouldbe a big jam for the rivermen to break, however. 

"Do you think you'll go up there?" asked North. 

Orde shook his head. 

"They're in a nice pickle, " he acknowledged; "but Nolan's in charge andwill do his best. I think we may have troubles of our own right here athome. "

He slept that night at the booms. The water, contrary to allexpectation, rose steadily. By morning it had crept so far up the pilesthat there began to be danger that it would overflow their tops. In thatcase, of course, the logs in the booms would also run out. 

"Guess it's time we did a little work, " remarked Orde. 

He set a crew of men to raising the height of the piling by tying logsfirmly to the bolted timbers atop. This would take care of an extratwo feet of water; a two feet beyond all previous records. Another crewstretched the fifteen inch manilla cables across the field of logs inorder to segregate them into several units of mass, and so prevent themfrom piling up at the down-stream end of the enclosure. The pile-driverbegan to drop its hammer at spots of weakness. In spite of theaccelerated current and the increased volume of the river, everythingwas soon shipshape and safe. 

"We're all right now, " said Orde. "The only thing I'm a little uneasyabout is those confounded temporary booms upstream. Still they're allright unless they get to piling up. Then we'll have to see what we cando to hold them. I think as soon as the driver is through down at thesorting end, she'd better drive a few clumps of piles to strengthen theswing when it is shut. Then if the logs pile down on us from above, wecan hold them there. "

About two hours later the pile-driver moved up. The swing was opened;and the men began to drive clumps of piles in such a position as tostrengthen the swing when the latter should be shut. It was a slowjob. Each pile had to be taken from the raft at the stern of the scow, erected in the "carrier, " and pounded into place by the heavy hammerraised and let drop in the derrick at the bow. 

Long before the task was finished, the logs in the temporary booms hadbegun to slide atop one another, to cross and tangle, until at lastthe river bed inside the booms was filled with a jam of formidabledimensions. From beneath it the water boiled in eddies. Orde, looking atit, roused himself to sudden activity. 

"Get a move on, " he advised Captain Aspinwall of the driver. "If thatjam breaks on us, we want to be ready; and if it don't break before youget this swing strengthened, maybe we can hold her where she is. There'sno earthly doubt that those boom piles will never stand up when they getthe full pressure of the freshet. "

He departed up river on a tour of inspection from which he returnedalmost immediately. 

"Hurry up! Hurry up!" he cried. "She can't last much longer!"

Indeed even to the men on the pile-driver, evidences of the pressuresustained by the slender boom piles were not wanting. Above the steadygurgle of the water and the intermittent puffing and other noises of thework, they could hear a creaking and groaning of timbers full of portentto those who could read the signs. 

The driver's crew laboured desperately, hoisting the piles into thecarriage, tripping the heavy hammer, sending it aloft again, bindingfeverishly the clumps of piles together by means of cables. Each manworked with an eye over his shoulder, fearful of the power that menacedhim. 

Two of the clumps had been placed and bound; a third was nearlyfinished, when suddenly, with a crack and a roar the upper booms gaveway, projecting their logs upon the opening and the driver. 

The half dozen members of the crew, caught utterly unaware in spiteof the half warning they had been receiving for an hour past, werescattered by the winds of a panic. Two or three flung themselves ontheir faces; several ran from one end of the scow to the other; oneleaped into the river! Imminent destruction seemed upon them. 

Tom North, at the winch that operated the arm of the swing, however, retained his presence of mind. At the first sag outward of the boompiles he set in operation the machinery that closed the gate. Clumsy andslow as was his mechanism, he nevertheless succeeded in getting thelong arm started. The logs, rushing in back of it, hurried it shut. Immediately they jammed again, and heaped up in a formidable tanglebehind the barrier. Tom North, his little black pipe between his teeth, stood calm, the lever of his winch in his hand. A short three feet fromthe spot on which he stood, the first saw log of the many that mighthave overwhelmed him thrust forward its ugly head. The wash of the waterlifted the huge pile-driver bodily and deposited it with a crash half onthe bank and half in the water. 

Instantly after the first break Orde had commenced running out over thebooms from the shore. 

"Good boy, Tom!" he shot at North as he passed. 

Across the breast of the jam he hurried, and to the other bank wherethe pile-driver lay. The crew had recovered from their panic, and wereashore gazing curiously underneath the scow. Captain Aspinwall examinedthe supports of the derrick on deck. 

"That was lucky, " said Orde briefly to Aspinwall. "How's the damage?Stove you in?"

"I--I don't think so, " replied the captain, turning a rather perturbedface to Orde. 

"That's good. I'll send over the tug to help get her afloat. We've gotour work cut out for us now. As soon as you're afloat, blow your whistleand I'll come over to tell you what to do. "

"You don't expect me to work my driver under the face of that jam!"cried the captain. 

"Certainly, " snapped Orde, wheeling. 

"Not me!" said Aspinwall positively. "I know when I've got enough!"

"What's the matter?" asked Orde. 

"It isn't safe, " replied the captain; "and I don't intend to risk my menor my driver. "

Orde stood for a moment stock-still; then with a snort of anger heleaped to the deck, seized the man by the neck and thrust him bodilyover the side to the bank. 

"Safe, you white-livered skunk!" he roared. "Safe! Go over in the middleof that ten-acre lot and lie down on your face and see if you feel safethere! Get out; the whole pack of you! I'm in charge here now. "

Captain Aspinwall picked himself up, his face red with anger. 

"Get off my driver, " he snarled. "Put that man off. "

Orde seized a short heavy bar. 

"This driver is requisitioned, " said he. "Get out! I haven't time tofool with you. I've got to save my logs. "

They hesitated; and while they did so Tom North and some others of thecrew came running across the jam. 

"Get a cable to the winch, " Orde shouted at these as soon as they werewithin hearing. "And get Marsh up here with the SPRITE. We've got to getafloat. "

He paid no more attention to the ejected crew. The latter, overawedby the rivermen, who now gathered in full force, took the part ofspectators. 

A few minutes' hard work put the driver afloat. Fortunately its raft ofpiles had not become detached in the upheaval. 

"Tom, " said Orde briskly to North, "you know the pile-driver business. Pick out your crew, and take charge. "

In ten seconds of time the situation had changed from one of comparativesafety to one of extreme gravity. The logs, broken loose from the uppertemporary booms, now jammed against the swing and against the other logsalready filling the main booms. Already the pressure was beginning totell, as the water banked up behind the mass. The fifteen-inch cablestightened slowly but mightily; some of the piles began to groan and rubone against the other; here and there a log deliberately up-ended abovethe level. 

Orde took charge of the situation in its entirety, as a general might. He set North immediately to driving clumps each of sixteen piles, boundto solidity by chains, and so arranged in angles and slants as to directthe enormous pressure toward either bank, thus splitting the enemy'spower. The small driver owned by the Boom Company drove similar clumpshere, there and everywhere that need arose or weakness developed. Seventy-five men opposed, to the weight of twenty million tons of logsand a river of water, the expedients invented by determination anddesperation. 

As in a virulent disease, the symptoms developed rapidly when once thecourse of the malady was assured. After the first rush, when the upperbooms broke, nothing spectacular occurred. Steadily and relentlessly thelogs, packed close together down to the very bed of the stream, pressedoutward against the frail defences. Orde soon found himself forced fromthe consideration of definite plans of campaign. He gave over formaldefences, and threw his energies to saving the weak places which rapidlydeveloped. By the most tremendous exertions he seemed but just ableto keep even. So closely balanced was the equilibrium between theimprovisation of defence and the increase of pressure behind the jamthat it seemed as if even a moment's breathing spell would bring thedeluge. Piles quivered, bent slowly outward--immediately, before thelogs behind them could stir, the pile-driver must do its work. Backand forth darted the SPRITE and her sister-tug the SPRAY towing thepile-drivers or the strings of piles. Under the frowning destructionthat a breath might loosen, the crews had to do their work. And if everthat breath should come, there would be no chance for escape. Crushedand buried, the men and their craft alike would be borne with thebreaking jam to an unknown grave in the Lake. Every man knew it. 

Darkness came. No one stopped for food. By the light of lanterns thestruggle went on, doubly terrifying in the mystery of night. By daythe men, practised in such matters, could at least judge of theprobabilities of a break. At night they had to work blindly, uncertainat what moment the forces they could not see would cut loose tooverwhelm them. 

Morning found no change in the situation. The water rose steadily;the logs grew more and more restive; the defences weaker and moreinadequate. Orde brought out steaming pails of coffee which the mengulped down between moments. No one thought of quitting. They were afirewith the flame of combat, and were set obstinately on winning even inthe face of odds. About ten o'clock they were reinforced by men from themills downstream. The Owners of those mills had no mind to lose theirlogs. Another pile-driver was also sent up from the Government work. Without this assistance the jam must surely have gone out. Spectatorsmarvelled how it held as it did. The mass seemed constantly to quiveron the edge of motion. Here and there over the surface of the jam singlelogs could be seen popping suddenly into the air, propelled as an appleseed is projected from between a boy's thumb and forefinger. Some ofthe fifteen-inch cables stretched to the shore parted. One, which passedonce around an oak tree before reaching its shore anchorage, actuallyburied itself out of sight in the hard wood. Bunches of piles bent, twisted, or were cut off as though they had been but shocks of Indiancorn. The current had become so swift that the tugs could not hold thedrivers against it; and as a consequence, before commencing operations, special mooring piles had to be driven. Each minute threatened to bringan end to the jam, yet it held; and without rest the dogged littleinsects under its face toiled to gain an inch on the waters. 

XXXIX

All that day and the next night the fight was hand to hand, without theopportunity of a breathing space. Then Orde, bareheaded and dishevelled, strung to a high excitement, but cool as a veteran under fire, began tobe harassed by annoyances. The piles provided for the drivers gave out. Newmark left, ostensibly to purchase more. He did not return. Tom Northand Jim Denning, their eyes burning deep in their heads for lack ofsleep, came to Orde holding to him symbolically their empty hands. 

"No more piles, " they said briefly. 

"Get 'em, " said Orde with equal brevity. "Newmark will have enough hereshortly. In the meantime, get them. "

North and his friend disappeared, taking with them the crews of thedrivers and the two tugs. After an interval they returned towing smallrafts of the long timbers. Orde did not make any inquiries; nor untildays later did he see a copy of the newspaper telling how a lawless gangof rivermen had driven away the railroad men and stolen the railroad'sproperty. These piles lasted five or six hours. Tom North placed anddrove them accurately and deliberately, quite unmindful of the constantdanger. A cold fire seemed to consume the man, inflaming his courage andhis dogged obstinacy. Once a wing of the jam broke suddenly just as hiscrew had placed a pile in the carrier. The scow was picked up, whirledaround, carried bodily a hundred feet, and deposited finally with acrash. The instant the craft steadied and even before any one could tellwhether or no the danger was past, Tom cut loose the hammer and drovethat pile!

"I put you in that carrier to be DROVE!" he shouted viciously, "anddrove you'll be, if we ARE goin' to hell!"

When the SPRAY shouldered the scow back to position that one pilewas left standing upright in the channel, a monument to the blinddetermination of the man. 

Fortunately the wing break carried with it but a few logs; but itsufficed to show, if demonstration were needed, what would happen if anymore serious break should occur. 

Orde was everywhere. Long since he had lost his hat; and over hisforehead and into his eyes the strands of his hair whipped tousled andunkempt. Miles and miles he travelled; running along the tops of thebooms, over the surface of the jam, spying the weakening places, andhurrying to them a rescue. He seemed tireless, omnipresent, alive toevery need. It was as though his personality alone held in correlationthese struggling forces; as though were he to relax for an instant hiseffort they would burst forth with the explosion of long-pent energies. 

Toward noon the piles gave out again. 

"Where in HELL is Newmark!" exploded Orde, and immediately was himselfagain, controlled and resourceful. He sent North and a crew of men tocut piles from standing timber in farm wood lots near the river. 

"Haul them out with your winch, " said he. "If the owners object, standthem off with your peavies. Get them anyway. "

About three of the afternoon the LUCY BELLE splattered up stream fromthe village, carrying an excursion to see the jam. Captain Simpsonbrought her as close in as possible. The waves raised by her awkwardpaddle-wheel and her clumsy lines surged among the logs and piles. Ordelooked on this with distrust. 

"Go tell him to pull out of that, " he instructed Jimmy Powers "Theconfounded old fool ought to know better than that. Tell him it'sdangerous. If the jam goes out, it'll carry him to Kingdom Come. "

Jimmy Powers returned red-faced from his interview. 

"He told me to go to hell, " he said shortly. 

"Oh, he did, " snapped Orde. "I should think we had enough without thatold idiot!"

With the short nervous leaps of a suppressed anger he ran down to wherethe SPRITE had just towed the Number One driver into a new position. 

"Lay me alongside the LUCY BELLE, " he told Marsh. 

But Simpson, in a position of importance at last, was disinclined tolisten. He had worn his blue clothes and brass buttons for a good manyyears in charge only of boxes and barrels. Now at a stroke he foundhimself commander over tenscore people. Likewise, at fifty cents a head, he foresaw a good thing as long as high water should last. He had risennobly to the occasion; for he had even hoisted his bunting and broughtwith him the local brass band. Orde, brusque in his desire to hurrythrough an affair of minor importance, rubbed the man the wrong way. 

"I reckon I've some rights on this river, " Captain Simpson concluded theargument, "and I ain't agoin' to be bulldozed out of them. "

The excursionists, typical "trippers" from Redding, Holland, Monroviaand Muskegon, cheered this sentiment and jeered at Orde. 

Orde nodded briefly. 

"Marsh, " said he to his captain in a low voice, "get a crew and takethem in charge. Run 'em off. "

As soon as the tug touched the piling, he was off and away, paying nofurther attention to a matter already settled. Captain Marsh called adozen rivermen to him; laid the SPRITE alongside the LUCY BELLE, and inspite of Simpson's scandalised protests and an incipient panic amongthe passengers, thrust aside the regular crew of the steamship andtook charge. Quite calmly he surveyed the scene. From the height of thesteamer's bridge he could see abroad over the country. A warm June sunflooded the landscape which was filled with the peace of early summer. The river seemed to flow smoothly and quietly enough, in spite of theswiftness of its current and the swollen volume of its waters. Only upstream where the big jam shrugged and groaned did any element jar onthe peace of the scene; and even that, in contrast to the rest of thelandscape, afforded small hint to the inexperienced eye of the imminenceof a mighty destruction. 

Captain Marsh paid little attention to all this. His eye swept rapidlyup and down where the banks used to be until he saw a cross currentdeeper than the rest sweeping in athwart the inundated fields. He swungover the wheel and rang to the engine-room for half speed ahead. Slowlythe LUCY BELLE answered. Quite calmly Captain Marsh rammed her throughthe opening and out over the cornfields. The LUCY BELLE was a typicalriver steamboat, built light in the draught in order to slide over thenumerous shifting bars to be encountered in her customary business. WhenCaptain Marsh saw that he had hit the opening, he rang for full speed, and rammed the poor old LUCY BELLE hard aground in about a foot of waterthrough which a few mournful dried cornstalks were showing their heads. Then, his hands in his pockets, he sauntered out of the pilot-house tothe deck. 

"Now if you want to picnic, " he told the astonished and frightenedexcursionists, "go to it!"

With entire indifference to the water, he vaulted over the low rail andsplashed away. The rivermen and the engineer who had accompanied himlingered only long enough to start up the band. 

"Now you're safe as a cow tied to a brick wall, " said the Rough Red, whose appearance alone had gone far toward overawing the passengers. "Bejoyful. Start up the music. Start her up, I tell you!"

The band hastily began to squawk, very much out of time, and somewhatout of tune. 

"That's right, " grinned the Rough Red savagely, "keep her up. If youquit before I get back to work, I'll come back and take you apart. "

They waded through the shallow water in the cornfield. After them waftedthe rather disorganised strains of WHOA, EMMA. Captain Simpson wasindulging in what resembled heat apoplexy. After a time the LUCY BELLE'Screw recovered their scattered wits sufficiently to transport thepassengers in small boats to a point near the county road, whence alltrudged to town. The LUCY BELLE grew in the cornfield until severalweeks later, when time was found to pull her off on rollers. 

Arrived at the booms Captain Marsh shook the loose water from his legs. 

"All right, sir, " he reported to Orde. "I ran 'em ashore yonder. "

Orde looked up, brushing the hair from his eyes. He glanced in thedirection of the cornfield, and a quick grin flickered across theabsorbed expression of his face. 

"I should think you did, " said he briefly. "I guess that'll end theexcursion business. Now take Number Two up below the swing; and thenrun down and see if you can discover Tom. He went somewhere after pilesabout an hour ago. "

Down river the various mill owners were busy with what men they had leftin stringing defences across the river in case Orde's works should goout. When Orde heard this he swore vigourously. 

"Crazy fools, " he spat out. "They'd be a lot better off helping here. Ifthis goes out, their little booms won't amount to a whiff of wind. "

He sent word to that effect; but, lacking the enforcement of hispersonal presence his messages did not carry conviction, and thepanic-stricken owners continued to labour, each according to his ideas, on what Orde's clearer vision saw to be a series of almost comicalfutilities. However, Welton answered the summons. Orde hailed his comingwith a shout. 

"I want a dredge, " he yelled, as soon as the lumberman was withindistance. "I believe we can relieve the pressure somewhat by a channelinto Steam's bayou. Get that Government dredge up and through the bayouas soon as you can. "

"All right, " said Welton briefly. "Can you hold her?"

"I've got to hold her, " replied Orde between his clenched teeth. "Haveyou seen Newmark? Where in HELL is Newmark? I need him for fifty things, and he's disappeared off the face of the earth! Purdy! that secondcable! She's snapped a strand! Get a reinforcing line on her!" He ran inthe direction of the new danger without another thought of Welton. 

By the late afternoon casual spectators from the countryside hadgathered in some number. The bolder or more curious of these added afurther touch of anxiety to the situation by clambering out over the jamfor a better view. Orde issued instructions that these should keep offthe logs; but in spite of that, with the impertinent perseverance of thesight-seer, many persisted from time to time, when the rivermen were toobusily engaged to attend to them, in venturing out where they were notonly in danger but also in the way. Tom North would have none of this onhis pile-driver. If a man was not actually working, he had no businesson Number One. 

"But, " protested a spectator mildly, "I OWN this driver. I haven'tany objections to your grabbing her in this emergency, even if you didmanhandle my captain; but surely you are not going to keep me off my ownproperty?"

"I don't give a tinker's damn who you are, " replied North sturdily. "Ifyou're not working, you get off. "

And get off he did. 

The broad deck of the pile-driver scow was a tempting point from whichto survey the work, and the ugly jam, and the water boiling angrily, andthe hollow-eyed, dishevelled maniacs who worked doggedly with set teethas though they had not already gone without two nights' sleep. Northhad often to order ashore intruders, until his temper shortened tothe vanishing point. One big hulking countryman attempted to arguethe point. North promptly knocked him overboard into the shallow waterbetween the driver and the bank. He did not rise; so North fished forhim in the most matter-of-fact way with a boat hook, threw him on thebank unconscious, and went on driving piles! The incident raised a laughamong the men. 

But flesh and blood has its limit of endurance; and that limit wasalmost reached. Orde heard the first premonitions of reaction inthe mild grumblings that arose. He knew these men well from his longexperience with them. Although the need for struggle against thetireless dynamics of the river was as insistent as ever; although itseemed certain that a moment's cessation of effort would permit theenemy an irretrievable gain, he called a halt on the whole work. 

"Boys, " said he, irrelevantly, "let's have a smoke?"

He set the example by throwing himself full length against a slantingpile and most leisurely filling his pipe. The men stared a moment;then followed his example. A great peace of evening filled the sky. Thehorizon lay low and black against the afterglow. Beneath it the rivershone like silver. Only the groaning, the heave and shrugging of thejam, and the low threatening gurgle of hurrying waters reminded thetoil-weary men of the enemy's continued activity. Over beyond the riseof land that lay between the river and Stearn's Bayou could be seenthe cloud of mingled smoke and steam that marked the activities of thedredge. For ten minutes they rested in the solace of tobacco. Ordewas apparently more at ease than any of the rest, but each instanthe expected to hear the premonitory CRACK that would sound the end ofeverything. Finally he yawned, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and gotto his feet. 

"Now, " said he, a new ring in his voice, "come on and let's getsomething DONE!"

They responded to a man. 

XL

By midnight the water seemed to have gone down slightly. Half thecrew snatched a little sleep. For several hours more the issue hungaggravatingly in equilibrium. Then, with the opening of the channel intoStearn's Bayou the heaviest pressure was relieved. For the moment theacute danger point was passed. 

Orde spent the next two days in strengthening the defences. The men wereable to take their quota of meals and of sleep. Merely the workinghours were longer than usual. Orde himself slept little, and was stillpossessed by a feverish activity. The flood continued at about thesame volume. Until the water should subside, the danger could not beconsidered completely over with. 

In these few days of comparative leisure Orde had time to look abouthim and to receive news. The jam had been successfully held at the ironrailroad bridge above Redding; but only by the most strenuous efforts. Braces of oak beams had been slanted where they would do the most good;chains strengthened the weaker spots; and on top of all ton after ton ofrailroad iron held the whole immovably. Nolan had enjoyed the advantageof a "floating" jam; of convenient facilities incident to a large city;and of an aroused public sentiment that proffered him all the help hecould use. Monrovia, little village that it was, had not graspedthe situation. Redding saw it clearly. The loss of the timberalone--representing some millions of dollars' worth of the sawedproduct--would mean failure of mill companies, of banks holding theirpaper, and so of firms in other lines of business; and besides wouldthrow thousands of men out of employment. Furthermore, what was quite asserious, should the iron bridge give way, the wooden bridges belowcould hardly fail to go out. Railroad communication between eastern andwestern Michigan would be entirely cut off. For a season industry ofevery description would be practically paralysed. Therefore Nolan hadall the help he required. Every device known was employed to strengthenthe jam. For only a few hours was the result in doubt. Then as theCLARION jubilantly expressed it, "It's a hundred dollars to an old hatshe holds!"

Orde received all this with satisfaction, but with a slight scepticism. 

"It's a floating jam; and it gets a push from underneath, " he pointedout. "It's probably safe; but another flood might send it out. "

"The floods are going down, " said North. 

"Good Lord; I hope so!" said Orde. 

Newmark sent word that a sudden fit of sickness had confined him to thehouse. 

"Didn't think of a little thing like piles, " said Orde to himself. "Well, that's hardly fair. Joe couldn't have realised when he left herejust how bad things were. "

For two days, as has been said, nothing happened. Then Orde decidedto break out a channel through the jam itself. This was a necessarypreliminary to getting the logs in shape for distribution. An openingwas made in the piles, and the rivermen, with pike-pole and peavy, begancautiously to dig their way through the tangled timbers. The Governmentpile-driver, which had finally been sent up from below, began placingfive extra booms at intervals down stream to capture the drift as fastas it was turned loose. From the mills and private booms crews came toassist in the labour. The troubles appeared to be quite over, when wordcame from Redding that the waters were again rising. Ten minutes laterLeopold Lincoln Bunn, the local reporter, came flapping in on Randall'sold white horse, like a second Paul Revere, crying that the iron bridgehad gone, and the logs were racing down river toward the booms. 

"It just went out!" he answered the eager exclamations of the men whocrowded around him. "That's all I know. It went out! And the otherbridges! Sure! All but the Lake Shore! Don't know why that didn't goout. No; the logs didn't jam there; just slid right under!"

"That settles it, " said Welton, turning away. 

"You aren't going to quit!" cried Orde. 

"Certainly. You're crazy!" said Welton with some asperity. "If theycan't stop a little jam with iron, what are your wooden defences goingto amount to against the whole accumulation? When those logs hit thetail of this jam, she'll go out before you can wink. "

He refused to listen to argument. 

"It's sure death, " said he, "and I'm not going to sacrifice my men fornothing, even if they'd stay. "

Other owners among the bystanders said the same thing. An air ofprofound discouragement had fallen on them all. The strain of the fightwas now telling. The utmost that human flesh and blood was capableof had been accomplished; a hard-won victory had been gained by thenarrowest of narrow margins. In this new struggle the old odds werestill against them, and in addition the strength that had pushed asideRedding's best effort, augmented by the momentum of a powerful current. It was small wonder they gave up. 

Already the news was spreading among the workers on the jams. As manshouted to man, each shouldered his peavy and came running ashore, eagerquestion on his lips. Orde saw the Government driver below casting loosefrom her moorings. A moment later her tug towed her away to some sidebayou of safety out of the expected rush to the Lake. 

"But we can hold her!" cried Orde in desperation. "Have a little nervewith you. You aren't going to quit like that!"

He swept them with his eye; then turned away from them with a gesture ofdespair. They watched him gravely and silently. 

"It's no use, boy, " said old Carlin; "it's sure death. "

"Sure death!" Orde laughed bitterly. "All right; sure death, then. Isn'tthere a man in this crowd that will tackle this sort of sure death withme?"

"I'm with you. "

"And me, " said North and the Rough Red in a breath. 

"Good!" cried Orde. "You, too, Johnny Sims? and Purdy? and Jimmy Powers?Bully boys!"

"I reckon you'll need the tug, " said Marsh. 

A dozen more of Orde's personal following volunteered. At once his goodhumour returned; and his easy leisurely confidence in himself. 

"We've got to close that opening, first thing, " said he. "Marsh, tow thepile-driver up there. "

He caused a heavy line to be run from a tree, situated around the benddown stream, to the stern of the driver. 

"Now if you have to, " he told North, who had charge, "let go all holds, and the line will probably swing you around out of danger. We on the tugwill get out as best we can. "

The opening was to be closed by piles driven in groups of sixteen boundtogether by chains. The clumps were connected one to the other by asystem of boom logs and ropes to interpose a continuous barrier. Thepile-driver placed the clumps; while the tug attended to the connectingdefences. 

"Now, boys, " said Orde as his last word, "if she starts to go, saveyourselves the best way you can. Never mind the driver. STAY ON TOP!"

Slowly the tug and her consort nosed up through the boiling water. 

"She's rising already, " said Orde to Marsh, watching the water aroundthe piles. 

"Yes, and that jam's going out before many minutes, " supplemented thetugboat captain grimly. 

Both these statements were only too true. Although not fifteen minutesbefore, the jam had lain locked in perfect safety, now the slight riseof the waters had lifted and loosened the mass until it rose fairly onthe quiver. 

"Work fast!" Orde called to the men on the pile-driver. "If we can closethe opening before those Redding logs hit us, we may be able to turnthem into our new channel. "

He did not add that if the opening were not closed before the jam broke, as break it would in a very few moments, the probabilities were thatboth pile-driver and tug would be destroyed. Every man knew thatalready. 

Tom North ordered a pile placed in the carriage; the hammer descended. At once, like battering rams logs began to shoot up from the depths ofthe river end foremost all about them. These timbers were projected withtremendous force, leaping sometimes half their length above the surfaceof the water. If any of them had hit either the tug or the pile-driversquarely, it would have stove and sunk the craft. Fortunately this didnot happen; but Marsh hastily towed the scow back to a better position. The pile had evidently been driven into the foot of the jam itself, thusloosening timbers lying at the bottom of the river. 

The work went forward as rapidly as possible. Four times the jamshrugged and settled; but four times it paused on the brink ofdischarge. Three of the clumps had been placed and bound; and fifteenpiles of the last clump had been driven. 

"One more pile!" breathed Orde, his breath quickening a trifle as heglanced up stream. 

The hammer in the high derrick ran smoothly to the top, paused, andfell. A half dozen times more it ripped. Then without delay the heavychains were thrown around the winch, and the steam power began to drawthe clumps together. 

"Done!" cried Tom North, straightening his back. 

"And a job in time, too, " said Johnny Sims, indicating the creaking andtottering jam. 

North unmoored, and the driver dropped back with the current and aroundthe bend where she was snubbed by the safety line already mentioned. 

Immediately the tug churned forward to accomplish the last duty, thatof binding the defences together by means of chains and cables. Two menleaped to the floating booms and moved her fore and aft. Orde and theRough Red set about the task. Methodically they worked from either endtoward the middle. When they met finally, Orde directed his assistant toget aboard the tug. 

"I'll tie this one, Jimmy, " said he. 

Aboard the tug all was tense preparation. Marsh grasped alertlythe spokes of the wheel. In the engine-room Harvey, his hand on thethrottle, stood ready to throw her wide open at the signal. Armed withsharp axes two men prepared to cut the mooring lines on a sign from theRough Red. They watched his upraised hand. When it should descend, theiraxes must fall. 

"Look out, " the Rough Red warned Orde, who was methodically tying thelast cumbersome knot, "she's getting ready!"

Orde folded the knot over without reply. Up stream the jam creaked, groaned, settled deliberately forward, cutting a clump of piles likestraw. 

"She's coming!" cried the Rough Red. 

"Give me every second you can, " said Orde, without looking up. He wasjust making the last turns. 

The mass toppled slowly, fell into the swift current, and leaped with aroar. The Rough Red watched with cat-like attention. 

"Jump!" he cried at last, and his right arm descended. 

With the shout and the motion several things happened simultaneously. Orde leaped blindly for the rail, where he was seized and dragged aboardby the Rough Red; the axes fell, Marsh whirled over the wheel, Harveythrew open his throttle. The tug sprang from its leash like a hound. And behind the barrier the logs, tossing and tumbling, the white sprayflying before their onslaught, beat in vain against the barrier, likeraging wild beasts whose prey has escaped. 

"Close call, " said Orde briefly. 

"Bet you, " replied Marsh. 

Neither referred to the tug's escape; but to the fortunate closing ofthe opening. 

XLI

Orde now took steps to deflect into the channel recently dredged toStearn's Bayou the mass of the logs racing down stream from Redding. Heestimated that he had still two hours or so in which to do the work. Inthis time he succeeded by the severest efforts in establishing a roughshunt into the new channel. The logs would come down running free. Onlythe shock of their impact against the tail of the jam already formed wasto be feared. Orde hoped to be able to turn the bulk of them aside. 

This at first he succeeded in doing; and very successfully as affectingthe pressure on the jam below. The first logs came scattering. Then ina little while the surface of the river was covered with them; theyshouldered each other aside in their eagerness to outstrip the rushingwater; finally they crowded down more slowly, hardly able to make theirway against the choking of the river banks, but putting forth in thevery effort to proceed a tremendous power. To the crew working in thechannel dredged through to Steam's Bayou the affair was that of drivinga rather narrow and swift stream, only exaggerated. By quick and skilfulwork they succeeded in keeping the logs in motion. A large proportion ofthe timbers found their way into the bayou. Those that continued on downthe river could hardly have much effect on the jam. 

The work was breathless in its speed. From one to another sweat-bathed, panting man the logs were handed on. As yet only the advance of the bigjam had arrived at the dredged channel. 

Orde looked about him and realised this. 

"We can't keep this up when the main body hits us, " he panted to hisneighbour, Jim Denning. "We'll have to do some more pile-driver work. "

He made a rapid excursion to the boom camp, whence he returned withthirty or forty of the men who had given up work on the jam below. 

"Here, boys, " said he, "you can at least keep these logs moving in thischannel for a couple of hours. This isn't dangerous. "

He spoke quite without sarcastic intent; but the rivermen, already overtheir first panic, looked at each other a trifle shamefacedly. 

"I'll tie into her wherever you say, " said one big fellow. "If youfellows are going back to the jam, I'm with you. "

Two or three more volunteered. The remainder said nothing, but insilence took charge of the dredged channel. 

Orde and his men now returned to the jam where, on the pile-driver, thetugs, and the booms, they set methodically to strengthening the defencesas well as they were able. 

"She's holding strong and dandy, " said Orde to Tom North, examiningcritically the clumps of piles. "That channel helps a lot in more waysthan one. It takes an awful lot of water out of the river. As long asthose fellows keep the logs moving, I really believe we're all right. "

But shortly the water began to rise again, this time fairly by leaps. In immediate response the jam increased its pressure. For the hundredthtime the frail wooden defences opposed to millions of pounds were testedto the very extreme of their endurance. The clumps of piles saggedoutward; the network of chains and cables tightened and tightenedagain, drawing ever nearer the snapping point. Suddenly, almost withoutwarning, the situation had become desperate. 

And for the first time Orde completely lost his poise and becamefluently profane. He shook his fist against the menacing logs; heapostrophised the river, the high water, the jam, the deserters, Newmarkand his illness, ending finally in a general anathema against any andall streams, logs, and floods. Then he stormed away to see if anythinghad gone wrong at the dredged channel. 

"Well, " said Tom North, "they've got the old man real good and mad thistime. "

The crew went on driving piles, stringing cables, binding chains, although, now that the inspiration of Orde's combative spirit waswithdrawn the labours seemed useless, futile, a mere filling in of thetime before the supreme moment when they would be called upon to pay thesacrifice their persistence and loyalty had proffered for the altar ofself-respect and the invincibility of the human Soul. 

At the dredged channel Orde saw the rivermen standing idle, and, half-blind with anger he burst upon them demanding by this, that and theother what they meant. Then he stopped short and stared. 

Square across the dredged channel and completely blocking it lay asingle span of an iron bridge. Although twisted and misshapen, it wasstill intact, the framework of its overhead truss-work retaining itscage-like shape. Behind it the logs had of course piled up in a jam, which, sinking rapidly to the bed of the channel, had dammed back thewater. 

"Where in hell did that drop from?" cried Orde. 

"Come down on top the jam, " explained a riverman. "Must have come wayfrom Redding. We just couldn't SCARE her out of here. "

Orde, suddenly fallen into a cold rage, stared at the obstruction, bothfists clenched at his side. 

"Too bad, boy, " said Welton at his elbow. "But don't take it too hard. You've done more than any of the rest of us could. And we're all loserstogether. "

Orde looked at him strangely. 

"That about settles it, " repeated Welton. 

"Settle!" cried Orde. "I should think not. "

Welton smiled quaintly. 

"Don't you know when you're licked?"

"Licked, hell!" said Orde. "We've just begun to fight. "

"What can you do?"

"Get that bridge span out of there, of course. "

"How?"

"Can't we blow her up with powder?"

"Ever try to blow up iron?"

"There must be some way. "

"Oh, there is, " replied Welton. "Of course--take her apart bolt by boltand nut by nut. "

"Send for the wrenches, then, " snapped Orde. 

"But it would take two or three days, even working night and day. "

"What of it?"

"But it would be too late--it would do no good--"

"Perhaps not, " interrupted Orde; "but it will be doing something, anyway. Look here, Welton, are you game? If you'll get that bridge outin two days I'll hold the jam. "

"You can't hold that jam two hours, let alone two days, " said Weltondecidedly. 

"That's my business. You're wasting time. Will you send for lanterns andwrenches and keep this crew working?"

"I will, " said Welton. 

"Then do it. "

During the next two days the old scenes were all relived, with back ofthem the weight of the struggle that had gone before. The little crewworked as though mad. Excepting them, no one ventured on the river, for to be caught in the imminent break meant to die. Old spars, refusetimbers of all sorts--anything and everything was requisitioned thatmight help form an obstruction above or below water. Piles were takenwhere they could be found. Farmer's trees were cut down. Pines belongingto divers and protesting owners were felled and sharpened. Somewere brought in by rail. Even the inviolate Government supply wascommandeered. The Railroad Company had a fine lot which, with remarkableshortsightedness and lack of public spirit, they refused to sell at anyprice. The crew took them by force. Once Captain Marsh was found up tohis waist in water, himself felling the trees of a wood, and draggingthem to the river by a cable attached to the winch of his tug. Nightfollowed day; and day night again. None of the crews realised the fact. The men were caught in the toils of a labour ceaseless and eternal. Never would it end, just as never had it begun. Always were they tohandle piles, steam hammers and the implements of their trade, menacedby a jam on the point of breaking, wet by a swollen and angry flood, over-arched by a clear calm sky or by the twinkling peaceful stars. Longsince had they ceased to reckon with the results of what they did, the consequences either to themselves or to the jam. Mechanically theyperformed their labour. Perhaps the logs would kill them. Perhaps theselong, black, dripping piles they drove were having some effect on thesituation. Neither possibility mattered. 

Then all at once, as though a faucet had been turned off, the floodsslackened. 

"They've opened the channel, " said Orde dully. His voice sounded tohimself very far away. Suddenly the external world, too, seemed removedto a distance, far from his centre of consciousness. He felt himselfmoving in strange and distorted surroundings; he heard himself repeatingto each of a number of wavering, gigantic figures the talismanic wordsthat had accomplished the dissolution of the earth for himself: "They'veopened the channel. " At last he felt hard planks beneath his feet, and, shaking his head with an effort, he made out the pilot-house of theSPRITE and a hollow-eyed man leaning against it. "They've opened thechannel, Marsh, " he repeated. "I guess that'll be all. " Then quiteslowly he sank to the deck, sound asleep. 

Welton, returning from his labours with the iron bridge and thejam, found them thus. Men slept on the deck of the tug, aboard thepile-driver. Two or three had even curled up in the crevices of the jam, resting in the arms of the monster they had subdued. 

XLII

When Newmark left, in the early stages of the jam, he gave scant thoughtto the errand on which he had ostensibly departed. Whether or nor Ordegot a supply of piles was to him a matter of indifference. His hope, or rather preference was that the jam should go out; but he saw clearlywhat Orde, blinded by the swift action of the struggle, was as yetunable to perceive. Even should the riverman succeed in stopping thejam, the extraordinary expenses incidental to the defence and to thesubsequent salvaging, untangling and sorting would more than eat up theprofits of the drive. Orde would then be forced to ask for an extensionof time on his notes. 

On arriving in Monrovia, he drove to his own house. To Mallock he issuedorders. 

"Go to the office and tell them I am ill, " said he, "and then huntup Mr. Heinzman, wherever he is, and tell him I want to see himimmediately. "

He did not trouble to send word directly to Orde, up river; but lefthim to be informed by the slow process of filtration through thebookkeepers. The interim of several hours before Heinzman appeared hespent very comfortably in his easy chair, dipping into a small volume ofMontaigne. 

At length the German was announced. He entered rather red andbreathless, obviously surprised to find Newmark at home. 

"Dot was a terrible jam, " said he, mopping his brow and sinking into achair. "I got lots of logs in it. "

Newmark dismissed the subject with an abrupt flip of his unlightedcigar. 

"Heinzman, " said he, "in three weeks at the latest Orde will come to youasking for a renewal of the notes you hold against our firm. You mustrefuse to make such a renewal. "

"All righdt, " agreed Heinzman. 

"He'll probably offer you higher interest. You must refuse that. Thenwhen the notes are overdue you must begin suit in foreclosure. "

"All righdt, " repeated Heinzman a little restlessly. "Do you think hevill hold that jam?"

Newmark shrugged his shoulders swiftly. 

"I got lots of logs in that jam. If that jam goes out I vill lose a heapof money. "

"Well, you'll make quite a heap on this deal, " said Newmark carelessly. 

"Suppose he holds it, " said Heinzman, pausing. "I hate like the mischiefto joomp on him. "

"Rot!" said Newmark decisively. "That's what he's there for. " He lookedat the German sharply. "I suppose you know just how deep you're inthis?"

"Oh, I ain't backing oudt, " negatived Heinzman. "Not a bit. "

"Well, then, you know what to do, " said Newmark, terminating theinterview. 

XLIII

Little by little the water went down. The pressure, already considerablyrelieved by the channel into Stearn's Bayou, slackened every hour. Orde, still half dazed with his long-delayed sleep, drove back along the marshroad to town. 

His faculties were still in the torpor that follows rest afterexhaustion. The warm July sun, the breeze from the Lake, the flash oflight from the roadside water, these were all he had room for among hisperceptions. He was content to enjoy them, and to anticipate drowsilythe keen pleasure of seeing Carroll again. In the rush of the jam he hadheard nothing from her. For all he knew she and Bobby might have beenamong the spectators on the bank; he had hardly once left the river. Itdid not seem to him strange that Carroll should not have been there towelcome him after the struggle was over. Rarely did she get to the boomsin ordinary circumstances. This episode of the big jam was, after all, nothing but part of the day's work to Orde; a crisis, exaggerated it istrue, but like many other crises a man must meet and cope with on theriver. There was no reason why Carroll should drive the twelve milesbetween Monrovia and the booms, unless curiosity should take her. 

As the team left the marsh road for the county turnpike past the millsand lumberyards, Orde shook himself fully awake. He began to reviewthe situation. As Newmark had accurately foreseen, he came almostimmediately to a realisation that the firm would not be able to meetthe notes given to Heinzman. Orde had depended on the profits from theseason's drive to enable him to make up the necessary amount. Thoseprofits would be greatly diminished, if not wiped out entirely, by theexpenses, both regular and irregular, incurred in holding the jam; bythe damage suits surely to be brought by the owners of the piles, trees, pile-drivers and other supplies and materials requisitioned in the heatof the campaign; and by the extra labour necessary to break out the jamand to sort the logs according to their various destinations. 

"I'll have to get an extension of time, " said Orde to himself. "Ofcourse Joe will let me have more time on my own personal note to thefirm. And Heinzman surely ought to--I saved a lot of his logs in thatjam. And if he doesn't want to, I guess an offer of a little higherinterest will fetch him. "

Ordinarily the state of affairs would have worried him, for it wasexactly the situation he had fought against so hard. But now he was toowearied in soul and body. He dismissed the subject from his mind. Thehorses, left almost to themselves, lapsed into a sleepy jog. After alittle they passed the bridge and entered the town. Warm spicy odours ofpine disengaged themselves from the broken shingles and sawdust of theroadway, and floated upward through the hot sunshine. The beautifulmaples with their dense shadows threw the sidewalks into coolness. Up one street and down another the horses took their accustomed way. Finally they pulled up opposite the Orde house. Orde hitched the horses, and, his step quickening in anticipation, sprang up the walk and intothe front door. 

"Hullo, sweetheart!" he called cheerily. 

The echoes alone answered him. He cried again, and yet again, with agrowing feeling of disappointment that Carroll should happen to be fromhome. Finally a door opened and shut in the back part of the house. Amoment later Mary, the Irish servant girl, came through the dining-room, caught sight of Orde, threw her apron over her head, and burst intoone of those extravagant demonstrations of grief peculiar to thewarm-hearted of her class. 

Orde stopped short, a sinking at his heart. 

"What is it, Mary?" he asked very quietly. 

But the girl only wept the louder, rocking back and forth in a freshparoxysm of grief. Beside himself with anxiety Orde sprang forwardto shake her by the arm, to shower her with questions. These elicitednothing but broken and incoherent fragments concerning "the missus, ""oh, the sad day!" "and me lift all alone with Bobby, me heartthat heavy, " and the like, which served merely to increase Orde'sbewilderment and anxiety. At this moment Bobby himself appeared from thedirection of the kitchen. Orde, frantic with alarm, fell upon his son. Bobby, much bewildered by all this pother, could only mumble somethingabout "smallpox, " and "took mamma away with doctor. "

"Where? where, Bobby?" cried Orde, fairly shaking the small boy by theshoulder. He felt like a man in a bad dream, trying to reach a goal thatconstantly eluded him. 

At this moment a calm, dry voice broke through the turmoil of questionsand exclamations. Orde looked up to see the tall, angular form of DoctorMcMullen standing in the doorway. 

"It's all right, " said the doctor in answer to Orde's agonisedexpression. "Your wife was exposed to smallpox and is at my house toavoid the danger of spreading contagion. She is not ill. "

Having thus in one swift decisive sentence covered the ground of Orde'sanxiety, he turned to the sniffling servant. 

"Mary, " said he sternly, "I'm ashamed of you! What kind of an exhibitionis this? Go out to the kitchen and cook us some lunch!" He watched herdepart with a humourous quirk to his thin lips. "Fool Irish!" he saidwith a Scotchman's contempt. "I meant to head you off before you gothome, but I missed you. Come in and sit down, and I'll tell you aboutit. "

"You're quite sure Mrs. Orde is well?" insisted Orde. 

"Absolutely. Never better. As well as you are. "

"Where was she exposed?"

"Down at Heinzman's. You know--or perhaps you don't--that old Heinzmanis the worst sort of anti-vaccination crank. Well, he's reaped thereward. "

"Has he smallpox?" asked Orde. "Why, I thought I remembered seeing himup river only the other day. "

"No; his daughter. "

"Mina?"

"Yes. Lord knows where she got it. But get it she did. Mrs. Ordehappened to be with her when she was taken with the fever anddistressing symptoms that begin the disease. As a neighbourly deed sheremained with the girl. Of course no one could tell it was smallpox atthat time. Next day, however, the characteristic rash appeared on thethighs and armpits, and I diagnosed the case. " Dr. McMullen laugheda little bitterly. "Lord, you ought to have seen them run! Servants, neighbours, friends--they all skedaddled, and you couldn't have driventhem back with a steam-roller! I telegraphed to Redding for a nurse. Until she came Mrs. Orde stayed by, like a brick. Don't know what Ishould have done without her. There was nobody to do anything at all. As soon as the nurse came Mrs. Orde gave up her post. I tell you, "cried Doctor McMullen with as near an approach to enthusiasm as he everpermitted himself, "there's a sensible woman! None of your story-booktwaddle about nursing through the illness, and all that. When herusefulness was ended, she knew enough to step aside gracefully. Therewas not much danger as far as she was concerned. I had vaccinated hermyself, you know, last year. But she MIGHT take the contagion and shewanted to spare the youngster. Quite right. So I offered her quarterswith us for a couple of weeks. "

"How long ago was this?" asked Orde, who had listened with a warm glowof pride to the doctor's succinct statement. 

"Seven days. "

"How is Mina getting on?"

"She'll get well. It was a mild case. Fever never serious after theeruption appeared. I suppose I'll have old Heinzman on my hands, though. "

"Why; has he taken it?"

"No; but he will. Emotional old German fool. Rushed right in when heheard his daughter was sick. Couldn't keep him out. And he's been withher or near her ever since. "

"Then you think he's in for it?"

"Sure to he, " replied Dr. McMullen. "Unless a man has been vaccinated, continuous exposure means infection in the great majority of cases. "

"Hard luck, " said Orde thoughtfully. "I'm going to step up to your houseand see Mrs. Orde. "

"You can telephone her, " said the doctor. "And you can see her if youwant to. Only in that case I should advise your remaining away fromBobby until we see how things turn out. "

"I see, " said Orde. "Well, " he concluded with a sigh, after a moment'sthought, "I suppose I'd better stay by the ship. "

He called up Dr. McMullen's house on the telephone. 

"Oh, it's good to hear your voice again, " cried Carroll, "even if Ican't see you! You must promise me right after lunch to walk up past thehouse so I can see you. I'll wave at you from the window. "

"You're a dear, brave girl, and I'm proud of you, " said Orde. 

"Nonsense! There was no danger at all. I'd been vaccinated recently. Andsomebody had to take care of poor Mina until we could get help. How'sBobby?"

XLIV

After lunch Orde went downtown to his office where for some time he satidly looking over the mail. About three o'clock Newmark came in. 

"Hullo, Joe, " said Orde with a slight constraint, "sorry to hear you'vebeen under the weather. You don't look very sick now. "

"I'm better, " replied Newmark, briefly; "this is my first appearance. "

"Too bad you got sick just at that time, " said Orde; "we needed you. "

"So I hear. You may rest assured I'd have been there if possible. "

"Sure thing, " said Orde, heartily, his slight resentment dissipating, asalways, in the presence of another's personality. "Well, we had a livelytime, you bet, all right; and got through about by the skin of ourteeth. " He arose and walked over to Newmark's desk, on the edge of whichhe perched. "It's cost us considerable; and it's going to cost us a lotmore, I'll have to get an extension on those notes. "

"What's that?" asked Newmark, quickly. 

Orde picked up a paper knife and turned it slowly between his fingers. 

"I don't believe I'll be able to meet those notes. So many things havehappened--"

"But, " broke in Newmark, "the firm certainly cannot do so. I've beenrelying on your assurance that you would take them up personally. Ourresources are all tied up. "

"Can't we raise anything more on the Northern Peninsula timber?" askedOrde. 

"You ought to know we can't, " cried Newmark, with an appearance ofgrowing excitement. "The last seventy-five thousand we borrowed for mefinishes that. "

"Can't you take up part of your note?"

"My note comes due in 1885, " rejoined Newmark with cold disgust. "Iexpect to take it up then. But I can't until then. I hadn't expectedanything like this. "

"Well, don't get hot, " said Orde vaguely. "I only thought that NorthernPeninsula stuff might be worth saving any way we could figure it. "

"Worth saving!" snorted Newmark, whirling in his chair. 

"Well, keep your hair on, " said Orde, on whom Newmark's manner wasbeginning to have its effect, as Newmark intended it should. "You havemy Boom Company stock as security. "

"Pretty security for the loss of a tract like the Upper Peninsulatimber!"

"Well, it's the security you asked for, and suggested, " said Orde. 

"I thought you'd surely be able to pay it, " retorted Newmark, now securein the position he desired to take, that of putting Orde entirely in thewrong. 

"Well, I expected to pay it; and I'll pay it yet, " rejoined Orde. "Idon't think Heinzman will stand in his own light rather than renew thenotes. "

He seized his hat and departed. Once in the street, however, hisirritation passed. As was the habit of the man, he began more clearlyto see Newmark's side, and so more emphatically to blame himself. After all, when he got right down to the essentials, he could not butacknowledge that Newmark's anger was justified. For his own private endshe had jeopardised the firm's property. More of a business man mighthave reflected that Newmark, as financial head, should have protectedthe firm against all contingencies; should have seen to it that it metHeinzman's notes, instead of tying up its resources in unnecessaryways. Orde's own delinquency bulked too large in his eyes to admit hisperception of this. By the time he had reached Heinzman's office, thelast of his irritation had vanished. Only he realised clearly now thatit would hardly do to ask Newmark for a renewal of the personal note onwhich depended his retention of his Boom Company stock unless he couldrenew the Heinzman note also. This is probably what Newmark intended. 

"Mr. Heinzman?" he asked briefly of the first clerk. 

"Mr. Heinzman is at home ill, " replied the bookkeeper. 

"Already?" said Orde. He drummed on the black walnut rail thoughtfully. The notes came due in ten days. "How bad is he?"

The clerk looked up curiously. "Can't say. Probably won't be back for along time. It's smallpox, you know. "

"True, " said Orde. "Well, who's in charge?"

"Mr. Lambert. You'll find him in the private office. "

Orde passed through the grill into the inner room. 

"Hullo, Lambert, " he addressed the individual seated at Heinzman's desk. "So you're the boss, eh?"

Lambert turned, showing a perfectly round face, ornamented by a dot of anose, two dots of eyes set rather close together, and a pursed upmouth. His skin was very brown and shiny, and was so filled by the fleshbeneath as to take the appearance of having been inflated. 

"Yes, I'm the boss, " said he non-committally. 

Orde dropped into a chair. 

"Heinzman holds some notes due against our people in ten days, " said he. "I came in to see about their renewal. Can you attend to it?"

"Yes, I can attend to it, " replied Lambert. He struck a bell; and to thebookkeeper who answered he said: "John, bring me those Newmark and Ordepapers. "

Orde heard the clang of the safe door. In a moment the clerk returnedand handed to Lambert a long manilla envelope. Lambert opened this quitedeliberately, spread its contents on his knee, and assumed a pair ofround spectacles. 

"Note for seventy-five thousand dollars with interest at ten per cent. Interest paid to January tenth. Mortgage deed on certain lands describedherein. "

"That's it, " said Orde. 

Lambert looked up over his spectacles. 

"I want to renew the note for another year, " Orde explained. 

"Can't do it, " replied Lambert, removing and folding the glasses. 

"Why not?"

"Mr. Heinzman gave me especial instructions in regard to this matterjust before his daughter was taken sick. He told me if you came whenhe was not here--he intended to go to Chicago yesterday--to tell you hewould not renew. "

"Why not?" asked Orde blankly. 

"I don't know that. "

"But I'll give him twelve per cent for another year. "

"He said not to renew, even if you offered higher interest. "

"Do you happen to know whether he intends anything in regard to thismortgage?"

"He instructed me to begin suit in foreclosure immediately. "

"I don't understand this, " said Orde. 

Lambert shook his head blandly. Orde thought for a moment. 

"Where's your telephone?" he demanded abruptly. 

He tried in vain to get Heinzman at his house. Finally the telephonegirl informed him that although messages had come from the strickenhousehold, she had been unable to get an answer to any of her numerouscalls, and suspected the bell had been removed. Finally Orde left theoffice at a loss how to proceed next. Lambert, secretly overjoyed atthis opportunity of exercising an unaccustomed and autocratic power, refused to see beyond his instructions. Heinzman's attitude puzzledOrde. A foreclosure could gain Heinzman no advantage of immediatecash. Orde was forced to the conclusion that the German saw here agood opportunity to acquire cheap a valuable property. In that case apersonal appeal would avail little. 

Orde tramped out to the end of the pier and back, mulling over thetangled problem. He was pressed on all sides--by the fatigue after histremendous exertions of the past two weeks; by his natural uneasiness inregard to Carroll; and finally by this new complication which threatenedthe very basis of his prosperity. Nevertheless the natural optimism ofthe man finally won its ascendency. 

"There's the year of redemption on that mortgage, " he reminded himself. "We may be able to do something in that time. I don't know just what, "he added whimsically, with a laugh at himself. He became grave. "PoorJoe, " he said, "this is pretty tough on him. I'll have to make it up tohim somehow. I can let him in on that California deal, when the titlesare straightened out. "

XLV

Orde did not return to the office; he felt unwilling to face Newmarkuntil he had a little more thoroughly digested the situation. He spentthe rest of the afternoon about the place, picking up the tool house, playing with Bobby, training Duke, the black and white setter dog. Threeor four times he called up Carroll by telephone; and three or four timeshe passed Dr. McMullen's house to shout his half of a long-distance andfragmentary conversation with her. He ate solemnly with Bobby at sixo'clock, the two quite subdued over the vacant chair at the other endof the table. After dinner they sat on the porch until Bobby's bed-time. Orde put his small son to bed, and sat talking with the youngster aslong as his conscience would permit. Then he retired to the library, where, for a long time, he sat in twilight and loneliness. Finally, whenhe could no longer distinguish objects across the room, he arose with asigh, lit the lamp, and settled himself to read. 

The last of the twilight drained from the world, and the window panesturned a burnished black. Through the half-open sashes sucked a warmlittle breeze, swaying the long lace curtains back and forth. The humof lawn-sprinklers and the chirping of crickets and tree-frogs came withit. 

One by one the lawn-sprinklers fell silent. Gradually there descendedupon the world the deep slumbrous stillness of late night; a stillnesscompounded of a thousand and one mysterious little noises repeatedmonotonously over and over until their identity was lost inaccustomedness. Occasionally the creak of timbers or the sharp scurryingof a mouse in the wall served more to accentuate than to break thisnight silence. 

Orde sat lost in reverie, his book in his lap. At stated intervals thestudent lamp at his elbow flared slightly, then burned clear again aftera swallow of satisfaction in its reservoir. These regular replenishmentsof the oil supply alone marked the flight of time. 

Suddenly Orde leaned forward, his senses at the keenest attention. Aftera moment he arose and quietly walked toward the open window. Just as hereached the casement and looked out, a man looked in. The two stared ateach other not two feet apart. 

"Good Lord! Heinzman!" cried Orde in a guarded voice. He steppeddecisively through the window, seized the German by the arm, and drewhim one side. 

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. 

Heinzman was trembling violently as though from a chill. 

"Dake me somewheres, " he whispered hoarsely. "Somewheres quick. I hafbroke quarantine, and dey vill be after me. "

"The place for you is at your own house, " said Orde, his anger rising. "What do you mean by coming here and exposing my house to infection?"

Heinzman began to blubber; choked, shivered all over, and cried aloudwith an expression of the greatest agony:

"You must dake me somewheres. I must talk with you and your goot wife. Ihaf somedings to say to you. " He in his turn grasped Orde by the arm. "Ihaf broke quarantine to gome and tell you. Dey are dere mit shotguns tokill me if I broke quarantine. And I haf left my daughter, my daughterMina, all alone mit dose people to come and tell you. And now you don'tlisten. "

He wrung his hands dramatically, his soft pudgy body shaking. 

"Come with me, " said Orde briefly. 

He led the way around the house to the tool shed. Here he lit a lantern, thrust forward one nail keg, and sat down on another. 

Heinzman sat down on the nail keg, almost immediately arose, walked upand down two or three times, and resumed his seat. 

Orde looked at him curiously. He was half dressed, without a collar, his thin hair unkempt. The usual bright colour of his cheeks had becomelivid, and the flesh, ordinarily firm and elastic, had fallen in foldsand wrinkles. His eyes burned bright as though from some internal fire. A great restlessness possessed him. Impulsively Orde leaned forward totouch his hand. It was dry and hot. 

"What is it, Heinzman?" he asked quietly, fully prepared for thevagaries of a half delirium. 

"Ach, Orde!" cried the German, "I am tortured mit HOLLENQUALLE--what youcall?--hell's fire. You, whose wife comes in and saves my Mina when theothers runs away. You, my best friends! It is SCHRECKLICH! She vas thenoblest, the best, the most kindest--"

"If you mean Mrs. Orde's staying with Mina, " broke in Orde, "it was onlywhat any one should have done, in humanity; and I, for one, am only tooglad she had the chance. You mustn't exaggerate. And now you'd betterget home where you can be taken care of. You're sick. "

"No, no, my friend, " said Heinzman, vigourously shaking his head. "Shemight take the disease. She might die. It vas noble. " He shuddered. "MyMina left to die all alone!"

Orde rose to his feet with decision. 

"That is all right, " said he. "Carroll was glad of the chance. Now letme get you home. "

But Heinzman's excitement had suddenly died. 

"No, " said he, extending his trembling hand; "sit down. I want to talkbusiness. "

"You are in no condition to talk business, " said Orde. 

"No!" cried Heinzman with unexpected vigour. "Sit down! Listen to me!Dot's better. I haf your note for sefenty-five t'ousand dollars. No?"

Orde nodded. 

"Dot money I never lent you. NO! I'm not crazy. Sit still! I know myname is on dot note. But the money came from somewheres else. It camefrom your partner, Joseph Newmark. "

Orde half rose from his keg. 

"Why? What?" he asked in bewilderment. 

"Den ven you could not pay the note, I vas to foreclose and hand overdot Northern Peninsula land to Joseph Newmark, your partner. "

"Impossible!" cried Orde. 

"I vas to get a share. It vas a trick. "

"Go on, " said Orde grimly. 

"Dere is no go on. Dot is all. "

"Why do you come to tell me now?"

"Because for more than one year now I say to mineself, 'Carl Heinzman, you vas one dirty scoundrel. You vas dishonest; a sneak; a thief';I don't like to call myself names like dose. It iss all righdt to besmart; but to be a thief!"

"Why didn't you pull out?" asked Orde. 

"I couldn't!" cried Heinzman piteously. "How could I? He haf me cold. I paid Stanford five hundred dollars for his vote on the charter; andJoseph Newmark, he know dot; he can PROVE it. He tell me if I don't dowhat he say, he put me in jail. Think of dot! All my friends go back onme; all my money gone; maybe my daughter Mina go back on me, too. Howcould I?"

"Well, he can still put you in prison, " said Orde. 

"Vot I care?" cried Heinzman, throwing up both his arms. "You and yourwife are my friends. She save my Mina. DU LIEBER GOTT! If my daughterhad died, vot good iss friends and money? Vot good iss anything? I don'tvant to live! And ven I sit dere by her always something ask me: 'Vy youdo dot to the peoples dot safe your Mina?' And ven she look at me, hereyes say it; and in the night everything cry out at me; and I get sick, and I can't stand it no longer, and I don't care if he send me to prisonor to hell, no more. "

His excitement died. He sat listless, his eyes vacant, his hands betweenhis knees. 

"Vell, I go, " he said at last. 

"Have you that note?" asked Orde. 

"Joseph Newmark, he keeps it most times, " replied Heinzman, "but now itis at my office for the foreclosure. I vill not foreclose; he can sendme to the penitentiary. "

"Telephone Lambert in the morning to give it to me. No; here. Write anorder in this notebook. "

Heinzman wrote the required order. 

"I go, " said he, suddenly weary. 

Orde accompanied him down the street. The German was again light-headedwith the fever, mumbling about his daughter, the notes, Carroll, thevoices that had driven him to righteousness. By some manoeuvring Ordesucceeded in slipping him through the improvised quarantine withoutdiscovery. Then the riverman with slow and thoughtful steps returnedto where the lamp in the study still marked off with the spacedreplenishments from its oil reservoir the early morning hours. 

XLVI

Morning found Orde still seated in the library chair. His head was sunkforward on his chest; his hands were extended listless, palms up, alongthe arms of the chair; his eyes were vacant and troubled. Hardly once inthe long hours had he shifted by a hair's breadth his position. His bodywas suspended in an absolute inaction while his spirit battered at thewalls of an impasse. For, strangely enough, Orde did not once, evenfor a single instant, give a thought to the business aspects of thesituation--what it meant to him and his prospects or what he coulddo about it. Hurt to the soul he stared at the wreck of a friendship. Nothing will more deeply sicken the heart of a naturally loyal man thanto discover baseless his faith in some one he has thoroughly trusted. 

Orde had liked Newmark. He had admired heartily his clearness ofvision, his financial skill, his knowledge of business intricacies, his imperturbable coolness, all the abilities that had brought him tosuccess. With a man of Orde's temperament, to admire is to like; and tolike is to invest with all good qualities. He had constructed his idealof a friend, with Newmark as a basis; and now that this, which hadseemed to him as solid a reality as a brick block, had dissolved intonothing, he found himself in the necessity of refashioning his wholeworld. He was not angry at Newmark. But he was grieved down to thedepths of his being. 

When the full sun shone into the library, he aroused himself to changehis clothes. Then, carrying those he had just discarded, he slipped outof the house and down the street. Duke, the black and white setter dog, begged to follow him. Orde welcomed the animal's company. He paused onlylong enough to telephone from the office telling Carroll he would be outof town all day. Then he set out at a long swinging gait over the hills. By the time the sun grew hot, he was some miles from the village and inthe high beech woods. There he sat down, his back to a monster tree. All day long he gazed steadily on the shifting shadows and splotchesof sunlight; on the patches of blue sky, the dazzling white clouds thatsailed across them; on the waving, whispering frond that over-archedhim, and the deep cool shadows beneath. The woods creatures soon becameaccustomed to his presence. Squirrels of the several varieties thatabounded in the Michigan forests scampered madly after each other inspirals around the tree trunks, or bounded across the ground in longundulating leaps. Birds flashed and called and disappeared mysteriously. A chewink, brave in his black and white and tan uniform, scratchedmightily with great two-footed swoops that threw the vegetable mouldover Orde's very feet. Blazoned butterflies--the yellow and blackturnus, the dark troilus, the shade-loving nymphalis--flickered in andout of the patches of sunlight. Orde paid them no attention. The noonheat poured down through the forest isles like an incense. Overheadswung the sun, and down the slope until the long shafts of its lightlifted wand-like across the tree trunks. 

At this hint of evening Orde shook himself and arose. He was littlenearer the readjustment he sought than he had been the previous night. 

He reached home a little before six o'clock. To his surprise he foundTaylor awaiting him. The lawyer had written nothing as to his return. 

"I had things pretty well in shape, " he said, after the first greetingshad been exchanged, "and it would do no good to stay away any longer. "

"Then the trouble is over?" asked Orde. 

"I wouldn't say that, " replied Taylor; "but you can rest easy as to thetitle to your lands. The investigation had no real basis to it. Theremay have been some small individual cases of false entry; but nothing onwhich to ground a???? attack. "

"When can I borrow on it?"

"Not for a year or two, I should say. There's an awful lot of red-tapeto unwind, as there always is in such cases. "

"Oh, " said Orde in some disappointment. 

Taylor hesitated, removed his eye-glasses, wiped them carefully, andreplaced them. He glanced at Orde sidelong through his keen, shrewdeyes. 

"I have something more to tell you; something that will be painful, "said he. 

Orde looked up quickly. 

"Well; what is it?" he asked. 

"The general cussedness of all this investigation business had mepuzzled, until at last I made up my mind to do a little investigating onmy own account. It all looked foolish to me. Somebody or something mustbe back of all this performance. I was at it all the time I was West, between times on regular business, of course. I didn't make much out ofmy direct efforts--they cover things up well in those matters--but atlast I got on a clue by sheer accident. There was one man behind allthis. He was--"

"Joe Newmark, " said Orde quietly. 

"How did you know that?" cried Taylor in astonishment. 

"I didn't know, Frank; I just guessed. "

"Well, you made a good guess. It was Newmark. He'd tied up the land inthis trumped-up investigation so you could not borrow on it. "

"How did he find out I owned any land?" asked Orde. 

"That I couldn't tell you. Must have been a leak somewhere. "

"Quite likely, " said Orde calmly. 

Taylor looked at his principal in some wonder. 

"Well, I must say you take it coolly enough, " said he at last. 

Orde smiled. 

"Do I?" said he. 

"Of course, " went on Taylor after a moment, "we have a strongpresumption of conspiracy to get hold of your Boom Company stock, which I believe you put up as security. But I don't see how we have anyincontestable proof of it. "

"Proof? What more do we want?"

"We'd have no witness to any of these transactions; nor have wedocumentary proofs. It's merely moral certainty; and moral certaintyisn't much in a court of law. I'll see him, if you say so, though, andscare him into some sort of an arrangement. "

Orde shook his head. 

"No, " said he decidedly. "Rather not. I'll run this. Please saynothing. "

"Of course not!" interjected Taylor, a trifle indignantly. 

"And I'll figure out what I want to do. "

Orde pressed Taylor to stay to supper; but the latter declined. Aftera few moments' conversation on general topics the lawyer took hisdeparture, secretly marvelling over the phlegmatic way in which Ordehad taken what had been to Taylor, when he first stumbled against it, ashocking piece of news. 

XLVII

Orde did not wish to return to the office until he had worked hisproblem out; so, to lend his absence the colour of naturalness, hedrove back next morning to the booms. There he found enough to keep himoccupied all that day and the next. As in those times the long distancetelephone had not yet been attempted, he was cut off from casualcommunication with the village. Late in the afternoon he returned home. 

A telephone to Carroll apprised him that all was well with her. A fewmoments later the call sounded, and Orde took a message that caused himto look grave and to whistle gently with surprise. He ate supper withBobby. About star-time he took his hat and walked slowly down the streetbeneath the velvet darkness of the maples. At Newmark's he turned inbetween the oleanders. 

Mallock answered his ring. 

"No, sir, Mr. Newmark is out, sir, " said Mallock. "I'll tell him youcalled, sir, " and started respectfully but firmly to close the door. 

But Orde thrust his foot and knee in the opening. 

"I'll come in and wait, " said he quietly. 

"Yes, sir, this way, sir, " said Mallock, trying to indicate thedining-room, where he wished Orde to sit until he could come at hismaster's wishes in the matter. 

Orde caught the aroma of tobacco and the glimmer of light to the left. Without reply he turned the knob of the door and entered the library. 

There he found Newmark in evening dress, seated in a low easy chairbeneath a lamp, smoking, and reading a magazine. At Orde's appearancein the doorway, he looked up calmly, his paper knife poised, keeping theplace. 

"Oh, it's you, Orde, " said he. 

"Your man told me you were not in, " said Orde. 

"He was mistaken. Won't you sit down?"

Orde entered the room and mechanically obeyed Newmark's suggestion, his manner preoccupied. For some time he stared with wrinkled brow at apoint above the illumination of the lamp. Newmark, over the end of hiscigar, poised a foot from his lips, watched the riverman with a coolcalculation. 

"Newmark, " Orde began abruptly at last, "I know all about this deal. "

"What deal?" asked Newmark, after a barely perceptible pause. 

"This arrangement you made with Heinzman. "

"I borrowed some money from Heinzman for the firm. "

"Yes; and you supplied that money yourself. "

Newmark's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Orde glanced toward him, then away again, as though ashamed. 

"Well, " said Newmark at last, "what of it?"

"If you had the money to lend why didn't you lend it direct?"

"Because it looks better to mortgage to an outside holder. "

An expression of profound disgust flitted across Orde's countenance. Newmark smiled covertly, and puffed once or twice strongly on his nearlyextinct cigar. 

"That was not the reason, " went on Orde. "You agreed with Heinzman todivide when you succeeded in foreclosing me out of the timber landsgiven as security. Furthermore you instructed Floyd to go out on the eveof that blow in spite of his warnings; and you contracted with McLeodfor the new vessels; and you've tied us up right and left for the solepurpose of pinching us down where we couldn't meet those notes. That'sthe only reason you borrowed the seventy-five thousand on your ownaccount; so we couldn't borrow it to save ourselves. "

"It strikes me you are interesting but inconclusive, " said Newmark, asOrde paused again. 

"That sort of thing is somewhat of a facer, " went on Orde without theslightest attention to the interjection. "It took me some days to workit out in all its details; but I believe I understand it all now. Idon't quite understand how you discovered about my California timber. That 'investigation' was a very pretty move. "

"How the devil did you get onto that?" cried Newmark, startled for amoment out of his cool attitude of cynical aloofness. 

"Then you acknowledge it?" shot in Orde quick as a flash. 

Newmark laughed in amusement. 

"Why shouldn't I? Of course Heinzman blabbed. You couldn't have got itall anywhere else. "

Orde arose to his feet, and half sat again on the arm of his chair. 

"Now I'll tell you what we will do in this matter, " said he crisply. 

But Newmark unexpectedly took the aggressive. 

"We'll follow, " said he, "the original programme, as laid down bymyself. I'm tired of dealing with blundering fools. Heinzman's mortgagewill be foreclosed; and you will hand over as per the agreement yourBoom Company stock. "

Orde stared at him in amazement. 

"I must say you have good nerve, " he said; "you don't seem to realisethat you are pretty well tangled up. I don't know what they call it:criminal conspiracy, or something of that sort, I suppose. So far fromhanding over to you the bulk of my property, I can send you to thepenitentiary. "

"Nonsense, " rejoined Newmark, leaning forward in his turn. "I know youtoo well, Jack Orde. You're a fool of more kinds than I care to count, and this is one of the kinds. Do you seriously mean to say that you daretry to prosecute me? Just as sure as you do, I'll put Heinzman in thepen too. I've got it on him, COLD. He's a bribe giver--and somewhat of acriminal conspirator himself. "

"Well, " said Orde. 

Newmark leaned back with an amused little chuckle. "If the man hadn'tcome to you and given the whole show away, you'd have lost every centyou owned. He did you the biggest favour in his power. And for yourbenefit I'll tell you what you can easily substantiate; I forced himinto this deal with me. I had this bribery case on him; and in additionhis own affairs were all tied up. "

"I knew that, " replied Orde. 

"What had the man to gain by telling you?" pursued Newmark. "Nothing atall. What had he to lose? Everything: his property, his social position, his daughter's esteem, which the old fool holds higher than any of them. You could put me in the pen, perhaps--with Heinzman's testimony. Butthe minute Heinzman appears on the stand, I'll land him high and dry andgasping, without a chance to flop. "

He paused a moment to puff at his cigar. Finding it had gone out, helaid the butt carefully on the ash tray at his elbow. 

"I'm not much used to giving advice, " he went on, "least of all when itis at all likely to be taken. But I'll offer you some. Throw Heinzmanover. Let him go to the pen. He's been crooked, and a fool. "

"That's what you'd do, I suppose, " said Orde. 

"Exactly that. You owe nothing to Heinzman; but something to whatyou would probably call repentance, but which is in reality a mawkishsentimentality of weakness. However, I know you, Jack Orde, from top tobottom; and I know you're fool enough not to do it. I'm so sure of itthat I dare put it to you straight; you could never bring yourself tothe point of destroying a man who had sacrificed himself for you. "

"You seem to have this game all figured out, " said Orde with contempt. 

Newmark leaned back in his chair. Two bright red spots burned in hisordinarily sallow cheeks. He half closed his eyes. 

"You're right, " said he with an ill-concealed satisfaction. "If you playa game, play it through. Each man is different; for each a differenttreatment is required. The game is infinite, wonderful, fascinating tothe skilful. " He opened his eyes and looked over at Orde with a mildcuriosity. "I suppose men are about all of one kind to you. "

"Two, " said Orde grimly; "the honest men and the scoundrels. "

"Well, " said the other, "let's settle this thing. The fact remains thatthe firm owes a note to Heinzman, which it cannot pay. You owe a note tothe firm which you cannot pay. All this may be slightly irregular; butfor private reasons you do not care to make public the irregularity. AmI right so far?"

Orde, who had been watching him with a slightly sardonic smile, nodded. 

"Well, what I want out of this--"

"You might hear the other side, " interrupted Orde. "In the first place, "said he, producing a bundle of papers, "I have the note and the mortgagein my possession. "

"Whence Heinzman will shortly rescue them, as soon as I get to see him, "countered Newmark. "You acknowledge that I can force Heinzman; and youcan hardly refuse him. "

"If you force Heinzman, he'll land you, " Orde pointed out. 

"There is Canada for me, with no extradition. He travels with heavierbaggage. I have the better trumps. "

"You'd lose everything. "

"Not quite, " smiled Newmark. "And, as usual, you are forgetting thepersonal equation. Heinzman is--Heinzman. And I am I. "

"Then I suppose this affidavit from Heinzman as to the details of allthis is useless for the same reason?"

Newmark's thin lips parted in another smile. 

"Correct, " said he. 

"But you're ready to compromise below the face of the note?"

"I am. "

"Why?"

Newmark hesitated. 

"I'll tell you, " said he; "because I know you well enough to realisethat there is a point where your loyalty to Heinzman would step aside infavour of your loyalty to your family. "

"And you think you know where that point is?"

"It's the basis of my compromise. "

Orde began softly to laugh. "Newmark, you're as clever as the devil, "said he. "But aren't you afraid to lay out your cards this way?"

"Not with you, " replied Newmark, boldly; "with anybody else on earth, yes. With you, no. "

Orde continued to laugh, still in the low undertone. 

"The worst of it is, I believe you're right, " said he at last. "You havethe thing sized up; and there isn't a flaw in your reasoning. I alwayssaid that you were the brains of this concern. If it were not for onething, I'd compromise sure; and that one thing was beyond your power toforesee. "

He paused. Newmark's eyes half-closed again, in a quick darting effortof his brain to run back over all the elements of the game he wasplaying. Orde waited in patience for him to speak. 

"What is it?" asked Newmark at last. "Heinzman died of smallpox at fouro'clock this afternoon, " said Orde. 

XLVIII

Newmark did not alter his attitude nor his expression, but his faceslowly went gray. For a full minute he sat absolutely motionless, hisbreath coming and going noisily through his contracted nostrils. Thenhe arose gropingly to his feet, and started toward one of the two doorsleading from the room. 

"Where are you going?" asked Orde quietly. 

Newmark steadied himself with an effort. 

"I'm going to get myself a drink in my bedroom, " he snapped. "Anyobjections?"

"No, " replied Orde. "None. After you get your drink, come back. I wantto talk to you. "

Newmark snarled at him: "You needn't be afraid I'll run away. How'd Iget out of town?"

"I know it wouldn't pay you to run away, " said Orde. 

Newmark passed out through the door. Orde looked thoughtfully atHeinzman's affidavit, which, duly disinfected, had been handed him byDr. McMullen as important; and thrust it and the other papers into hisinside pocket. Then he arose to his feet and glided softly across theroom to take a position close to the door through which Newmark haddeparted in quest of his drink. For a half minute he waited. Finallythe door swung briskly inward. Like a panther, as quickly and asnoiselessly, Orde sprang forward. A short but decisive struggle ensued. In less than ten seconds Orde had pinioned Newmark's arms to his sidewhere he held them immovable with one of his own. The other hand he randown Newmark's right arm to the pocket. There followed an instant ofsilent resistance. Then with a sharp cry of mingled anger and painNewmark snatched his hand out and gazed a trifle amazedly at the halfcrushed fingers. Orde drew forth the revolver Newmark had graspedconcealed in the coat pocket. 

Without hesitation he closed and locked the bedroom door; turned the keyin the lock of the other; tried and fastened the window. The revolverhe opened; spilled out the cartridges into his hand; and then tossed theempty weapon to Newmark, who had sunk into the chair by the lamp. 

"There's your plaything, " said he. "So you wanted that affidavit, didyou? Now we have the place to ourselves; and we'll thresh this matterout. "

He paused, collecting his thoughts. 

"I don't need to tell you that I've got you about where you live, " saidhe finally. "Nor what I think of you. The case is open and shut; and Ican send you over the road for the best part of your natural days. AlsoI've got these notes and the mortgage. "

"Quit it, " growled Newmark, "you've got me. Send me up; and be damned. "

"That's the question, " went on Orde slowly. "I've been at it three days, without much time off for sleep. You hurt me pretty bad, Joe. I trustedyou; and I thought of you as a friend. "

Newmark stirred slightly with impatience. 

"I had a hard time getting over that part of it; and aboutthree-quarters of what was left in the world looked mighty like ashesfor awhile. Then I began to see this thing a little clearer. We've beentogether a good many years now; and as near as I can make out you'vebeen straight as a string with me for eight of them. Then I suppose thechance came and before you knew it you were in over your neck. "

He looked, half-pleading toward Newmark. Newmark made no sign. 

"I know that's the way it might be. A man thinks he's mighty brave; andso he is, as long as he can see what's coming, and get ready for it. Butsome day an emergency just comes up and touches him on the shoulder, and he turns around and sees it all of a sudden. Then he finds he's acoward. It's pretty hard for me to understand dishonesty, or how a mancan be dishonest. I've tried, but I can't do it. Crookedness isn't myparticular kind of fault. But I do know this: that we every one of ushave something to be forgiven for by some one. I guess I've got a temperthat makes me pretty sorry sometimes. Probably you don't see how it'spossible for a man to get crazy mad about little things. That isn't yourparticular kind of fault. "

"Oh, for God's sake, drop that preaching. It makes me sick!" broke outNewmark. 

Orde smiled whimsically. 

"I'm not preaching, " he said; "and even if I were, I've paid a goodmany thousands of dollars, it seems, to buy the right to say what Idamn please. And if you think I'm working up to a Christian forgivenessracket, you're very much mistaken. I'm not. I don't forgive you; and Isurely despise your sort. But I'm explaining to you--no, to myself--justwhat I've been at for three days. "

"Well, turn me over to your sheriff, and let's get through with this, "said Newmark sullenly. "I suppose you've got that part of it all fixed. "

Orde rose. 

"Look here, Newmark, that's just what I've been coming to, just whatI've had such a hard time to get hold of. I felt it, but I couldn'tput my finger on it. Now I know. I'm not going to hand you over to anysheriff; I'm going to let you off. No, " he continued, in response toNewmark's look of incredulous amazement, "it isn't from any fool notionof forgiveness. I told you I didn't forgive you. But I'm not going toburden my future life with you. That's just plain, ordinary selfishness. I suppose I really ought to jug you; but if I do, I'll always carry withme the thought that I've taken it on myself to judge a man. And I don'tbelieve any man is competent to judge another. I told you why--or triedto--a minute or so ago. I've lived clean, and I've enjoyed the worldas a clean open-air sort of proposition--like a windy day--and I alwayshope to. I'd rather drop this whole matter. In a short time I'd forgetyou; you'd pass out of my life entirely. But if we carry this thingthrough to a finish, I'd always have the thought with me that I'd putyou in the pen; that you are there now. I don't like the notion. I'drather finish this up right here and now and get it over and done withand take a fresh start. " He paused and wiped his brow, wet with theunusual exertion of this self-analysis. "I think a fellow ought to actalways as if he was making the world. He ought to try not to put thingsin it that are going to make it an unpleasant or an evil world. Wedon't always do it; but we ought to try. Now if I were making a world, Iwouldn't put a man in a penitentiary in it. Of course there's dangerouscriminals. " He glanced at Newmark a little anxiously. "I don't believeyou're that. You're sharp and dishonest, and need punishment; but youdon't need extinction. Anyway, I'm not going to bother my future withyou. "

Newmark, who had listened to this long and rambling exposition withincreasing curiosity and interest, broke into a short laugh. 

"You've convicted me, " he said. "I'm a most awful failure. I thought Iknew you; but this passes all belief. "

Orde brushed this speech aside as irrelevant. 

"Our association, of course, comes to an end. There remain the terms ofsettlement. I could fire you out of this without a cent, and you'd haveto git. But that wouldn't be fair. I don't give a damn for you; but itwouldn't be fair to me. Now as for the Northern Peninsula timber, youhave had seventy-five thousand out of that and have lent me the sameamount. Call that quits. I will take up your note when it comes due; anddestroy the one given to Heinzman. For all your holdings in our commonbusiness I will give you my note without interest and without time forone hundred thousand dollars. That is not its face value, nor anythinglike it, but you have caused me directly and indirectly considerableloss. I don't know how soon I can pay this note; but it will be paid. "

"All right, " agreed Newmark. 

"Does that satisfy you?"

"I suppose it's got to. "

"Very well. I have the papers here all made out. They need simply to besigned and witnessed. Timbull is the nearest notary. "

He unlocked the outside door. 

"Come, " said he. 

In silence the two walked the block and a half to the notary's house. Here they were forced to wait some time while Timbull dressed himselfand called the necessary witnesses. Finally the papers were executed. Inthe street Newmark paused significantly. But Orde did not take the hint. 

"Are you coming with me?" asked Newmark. 

"I am, " replied Orde. "There is one thing more. "

In silence once more they returned to the shadowy low library filledwith its evidences of good taste. Newmark threw himself into thearmchair. He was quite recovered, once again the imperturbable, coldlycalculating, cynical observer. Orde relocked the door, and turned toface him. 

"You have five days to leave town, " he said crisply. "Don't ever show uphere again. Let me have your address for the payment of this note. "

He took two steps forward. 

"I've let you off from the pen because I didn't want my life botheredwith the thought of you. But you've treated me like a hound. I've beenloyal to the firm's interests from the start; and I've done my best byit. You knifed me in the back. You're a dirty, low-lived skunk. If youthink you're going to get off scot-free, you're mightily mistaken. "

He advanced two steps more. Newmark half arose. 

"What do you mean?" he asked in some alarm. 

"I mean that I'm going to give you about the worst licking you everheard TELL of, " replied Orde, buttoning his coat. 

XLIX

Five minutes later Orde emerged from Newmark's house, softly rubbing thepalm of one hand over the knuckles of the other. At the front gate hepaused to look up at the stars. Then he shut it decisively behind him. 

Up through the maple shaded streets he walked at a brisk pace, breathingdeep, unconsciously squaring back his shoulders. The incident wasbehind him. In his characteristic decisive manner he had wiped the wholedisagreeable affair off the slate. The copartnership with its gains andlosses, its struggles and easy sailing was a thing of the past. Onlythere remained, as after a flood the sediment, a final result of it all, the balance between successes and failures, a ground beneath the feetof new aspirations. Orde had the Northern Peninsula timber; the BoomCompany; and the carrying trade. They were all burdened with debt, itis true, but the riverman felt surging within him the reawakened andpowerful energy for which optimism is another name. He saw stretchingbefore him a long life of endeavour, the sort of endeavour he enjoyed, exulted in; and in it he would be untrammelled and alone. The ideaappealed to him. Suddenly he was impatient for the morrow that he mightbegin. 

He turned out of the side street. His own house lay before him, darksave for the gas jet in the hallway and the single lamp in the library. A harmony of softly touched chords breathed out through the open window. He stopped; then stole forward softly until he stood looking in throughthe doorway. 

Carroll sat leaning against the golden harp, her shining head with thesoft shadows bent until it almost touched the strings. Her hands werestraying idly over accustomed chords and rich modulations, the plaintivehalf-music of reverie. A soft light fell on her slender figure; halfrevealed the oval of her cheek and the sweep of her lashes. 

Orde crept to her unheard. Gently he clasped her from behind. Unsurprised she relinquished the harp strings and sank back against hisbreast with a happy little sigh. 

"Kind of fun being married, isn't it, sweetheart?" he repeated theirquaint formula. 

"Kind of, " she replied; and raised her face to his.