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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boss of Wind River, by A. M. Chisholm
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Boss of Wind River
+
+Author: A. M. Chisholm
+
+Release Date: December 28, 2010 [EBook #34775]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER
+
+[Illustration: The girl caught Joe's arm. "It's going out, Joe! It's
+going out! Oh, see it pull!"]
+
+
+
+
+THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER
+
+BY
+
+A. M. CHISHOLM
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+TO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY STREET & SMITH
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+The girl caught Joe's arm. "It's going out, Joe! It's going out! Oh, see
+it pull!"
+
+Miss Crooks came down the walk to meet him ... "I'm so glad to see you,
+Joe. I've been looking for you for days"
+
+Haggarty and Rough Shan, locked in a deadly grip, fought like bulldogs
+
+"There's the line. Cross it to-night or try to scrap with McCane's crew
+before I tell you to, and I'll shut down"
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+As young Joe Kent entered the office of the Kent Lumber Company at nine
+o'clock he was conscious of a sudden pause in the morning's work. He
+felt rather than saw that the eyes of every employee were fixed upon him
+with an interest he had never before excited. And the quality of this
+interest, as he felt it, was curiously composite. In it there was a new
+respect, but mingled with misgivings; a sympathy repressed by the
+respect; a very dubious weighing of him, a comparison, a sizing up--a
+sort of mental shake of the head, as if the chances were in favour of
+his proving decidedly light in the balance; and running through it all
+was a waiting expectancy, frankly tinged with curiosity.
+
+Kent nodded a somewhat embarrassed, comprehensive good morning, and as
+he did so a thick-set, grizzled man came forward and shook hands. This
+was Wright, the office and mill manager.
+
+"The personal and important mail is on your desk, Mr. Kent," he said.
+"Later I suppose you will want to go into the details of the business."
+
+"I expect Mr. Locke about ten o'clock," Kent replied. "I thought we
+might have a little talk together then, if you have time."
+
+Wright smiled a little sadly. "My time is yours, you know. Just let me
+know when you want me."
+
+Kent opened the door of the private office that had been his father's,
+stepped in, and shut it. He glanced half expectantly at the big,
+leather-cushioned revolving chair behind the broad, flat-topped desk on
+which the morning's mail lay neatly stacked. The chair was empty. It
+came to him in a keen, stabbing pain that whenever in future he should
+enter this office which was now his, the chair would be empty--that the
+big, square, kindly, keen-eyed man whose business throne it had been
+would sit in it no more.
+
+He seated himself at the desk, branded to right and left by countless
+cigars carelessly laid down, and drew the pile of correspondence to him.
+The topmost envelope bore no stamp, and as he saw his name upon it in
+the familiar, bold handwriting, his heart pounded and a lump rose in his
+throat. The fingers which slid a paper cutter beneath the flap were a
+trifle unsteady. He read:
+
+    My Dear Boy: Locke will see that you get this when I have gone
+    out. It is just a little personal note which I like to think you
+    will be glad to read.
+
+    I am not going to begin by apologizing for the fact that I leave
+    behind me less money than most people, including myself,
+    expected. There will be enough to give you a start and keep you
+    hustling, which will do you no harm. You'll find it easier to
+    hustle now than later. But, nevertheless, a word of explanation
+    is due you.
+
+    As you grow older you will observe that when the ordinary man
+    acquires a comfortable stack at his own game he is seized with
+    an unaccountable desire to play another man's game, at which he
+    usually loses. It turned out so with me. I know the logging
+    business; but I didn't know, and don't know, the stock market. I
+    lost and I have no kick coming. It serves me right, but it may
+    be a little hard on you. If that Power which put me in this
+    world had seen fit to allow me to remain in it for a few years I
+    would have stuck exclusively to my own last and repaired the
+    damage. As it is I am warned that I must go out inside six
+    months, and may do so at any earlier moment. It is in
+    contemplation of the latter possibility that I write you now.
+    Afterward I intend to go into business details with Locke. You
+    may tie to him and Crooks. They are both white men. Don't be too
+    proud to consult them occasionally. And if they both think one
+    way and you think the other, make up your mind you're wrong.
+
+    At a rough estimate, setting the present value of my assets
+    against my liabilities, there should be a credit balance of
+    fifty or sixty thousand dollars. That is lumping the whole
+    thing--mills, timber limits, camp equipments, real estate, and
+    so on. If you sold out everything you should get that much clear
+    cash, perhaps more. But I hope you won't sell. For one thing the
+    assets will increase in value. The water powers I own will be
+    worth a fortune some day. And then I want you to carry on the
+    business because I think you'll like it. You'll make mistakes,
+    of course; but in a few years or less I am certain you will have
+    lifted the incumbrances with which my folly has saddled the
+    concern, and you will begin to lay up a competence against the
+    time when your chief regret at leaving this world will be that
+    you must become only a memory to some one whom you love.
+
+    Preaching isn't my forte, and I am not trying to write a letter
+    which shall be a guide through life under all conceivable
+    conditions. But one or two hints may not be amiss. Such as they
+    are I've bought 'em with my own money and paid mighty dear for
+    some of them.
+
+    Remember this: Straight business is good business, and crooked
+    business isn't, no matter how much money you make at it. Apart
+    from ethics there's a come-back with it, every time. A very fair
+    test of the rectitude or otherwise of any deal is this: How will
+    it look in print beneath a good scare head? If you don't mind
+    the answer, it's probably all right. If you do, it's apt to be
+    mostly wrong, no matter how expensive a lawyer drew the papers.
+
+    Be steady. Don't let any man or thing rattle you into
+    unconsidered action. Take your own time; it's just as easy to
+    make other people wait for you as to wait for them, but don't
+    keep them standing. Know as much of other people's business as
+    is consistent with minding your own. When any man offers you a
+    gilt-edged snap, try to figure out why he doesn't keep it all
+    for himself; and if the answer is that he likes you, guess
+    again. If you ever feel that you're beaten and want to quit,
+    make sure that the other fellow isn't feeling worse; one more
+    punch will help you to make sure. Get your fun as you go along.
+    And now and then, Joe, old boy, when the sun is bright on the
+    river and woods and the fish are leaping and the birds are
+    flying and the tang of the open air makes life taste extra good,
+    take time for a thought of him who was your loving father.
+
+                                                    -- William Kent.
+
+Young Kent choked suddenly, put down the letter, and stared out of the
+window at a landscape which had become very indistinct and misty. Before
+him lay the silver bosom of the river, checkered with the long, black
+lines of the booms stretching from shore to anchor-pier, great water
+corrals for the herds of shaggy, brown logs that were driven down from
+their native forests every spring. The morning breeze, streaming through
+the open window, was laden with the clean, penetrating,
+never-to-be-forgotten odour of newly cut pine. The air was vibrant with
+the deep hum of distant machinery. The thunderous roll of the
+log-carriages, the high-pitched whine of the planers, the sharp notes of
+edgers and trimmers, blended into one grand harmony; and shouting
+through it at exactly spaced intervals came the sustained, ripping crash
+of the great saws as their teeth bit into the flesh of some forest
+giant, bound and prostrate on an iron bed of torment.
+
+As he looked and listened, his eyes cleared of mists. For the first time
+he realized dimly that it was worth while. That the sounds he heard were
+part of a great song, a Song of Progress; the triumphant, virile song of
+the newest and greatest of nations, ringing from sea to sea across the
+breadth of a continent as it built itself, self-sustaining, strong,
+enduring.
+
+And young Joe Kent, standing by the window facing his inheritance, was a
+fair representative of the average young American who works with his
+hands or with his head, and more often with both. There was nothing
+striking about him. He was of medium height, of medium weight, of medium
+good looks. From the top of his close-clipped brown head to the toes of
+his polished brown boots he was neat and trim and healthy and sound.
+Only, looking closer, an accurate observer might have noticed a breadth
+of shoulder and a depth of chest not apparent at first glance, and a
+sweep of lean jaw and set of mouth at variance with the frank, boyish
+good humour of the tanned face and brown eyes.
+
+Kent left the window, settled himself in his father's seat with as
+business-like an air as he could assume, and proceeded to wade through
+the pile of correspondence.
+
+In five minutes he was hopelessly bewildered. It was much less
+intelligible to him than Greek, for he was beautifully ignorant of the
+details of his father's business. It had been an understood thing
+between them that some day, in a year or two--no hurry at all about
+it--he should enter that office and master the details of that business
+against the time--how far off it looked then!--when it should devolve
+upon him to conduct it. But they had both put it off. He was young, just
+through college. A year of travel was merely a proper adjunct to a not
+particularly brilliant academic degree. And in the midst of it had come
+the cablegram summoning him home, where he arrived a scant twenty-four
+hours before his father's death.
+
+And now, William Kent having been laid to rest on the sunny slope where
+the great, plumed elms whispered messages with every summer breeze to
+the dead below them, his son was called to con the business ship through
+unknown waters, without any knowledge of navigation or even of ordinary
+seamanship.
+
+The letters which he scanned, reading the words but not getting the
+sense because he had not the remotest idea of what they were about, were
+for the most part exceedingly terse and business-like. They were the
+morning cream of the correspondence, skimmed from the mass by the
+practised hand of Wright, the manager; letters which, in the ordinary
+course of business, go direct to the head of the house to be passed
+upon.
+
+But in this case the head of the house had rather vaguer ideas than his
+office boy as to how they should be handled. They dealt with timber
+berths, with logs, with lumber, with contracts made and to be made; in
+fact with almost everything that Joe Kent knew nothing about and with
+nothing that he knew anything about. And so, in utter despair, he was on
+the point of summoning Wright to elucidate matters when, after an
+emphatic rap, the door opened, admitting a burly, red-faced man of
+fifty.
+
+This was Locke. He had the appearance of a prosperous farmer, and he was
+an exceedingly busy lawyer, with the reputation of a relentless fighter
+when once he took a case. He had been William Kent's friend as well as
+his legal adviser.
+
+"Well, Joe," said he, "getting into harness already?"
+
+"I can get into it easy enough," Joe replied; "but it's a lot too big
+for me."
+
+Locke nodded. "You'll grow. When I started I didn't know any more about
+law than you do about logs. You got that letter?"
+
+"Yes, thanks. He said I might tie to you and Crooks."
+
+Locke looked out of the window because his eyes were filling. To
+disguise the fact he pretended to search his pockets for a cigar and
+growled:
+
+"So you may, within limits. Got a smoke there? I'm out." He lit one of
+William Kent's big, black cigars, leaned back in his chair, and crossed
+one leg over the other. "Now, then, Joe, where shall we start?" he
+asked. "I'm busy, and you ought to be. What do you know of your father's
+affairs, anyway?"
+
+"Almost nothing," young Kent admitted. "Say I don't know anything, and
+it will be about right. This letter hints at debts--mortgages and
+things, I suppose."
+
+"Mortgages and things!" repeated the lawyer. "Lord, what an
+unsophisticated young blood you are! I should say there were. Now here
+it is, as your father explained it to me."
+
+Kent tried to follow the lawyer's practised analysis, but did not
+altogether succeed. Three things emerged clearly. The mills, plant, and
+real estate were heavily mortgaged. There was an indebtedness to the
+Commercial Bank on notes made by William Kent and endorsed by Crooks.
+And there was a further indebtedness to them on Kent's notes alone,
+secured by a collateral mortgage on certain timber lands.
+
+"Now, you see," Locke concluded, "setting the assets against the
+liabilities you are solvent to the extent of sixty or seventy thousand
+dollars, or perhaps more. In all probability you could get that clear if
+you sold out. Properly managed for you by somebody else, it would yield
+an income of between three and four thousand dollars per annum. On that
+you could live comfortably, be free from worry, and die of dry-rot and
+Scotch highballs at about my age."
+
+"I'm going to run the business," said Joe. "My father wished it; and
+anyway I'm going to."
+
+Locke smoked thoughtfully for some moments. "That's good talk," he said
+at length. "I understand your feelings. But before you come to a
+definite conclusion take time to look at all sides of the question. The
+cold fact is that you have had no experience. The business is solvent,
+but too involved to give you much leeway. It is an expensive one to run,
+and you can't afford to make many mistakes. For seven months in the year
+your payroll and camp supply bill will run into five figures. Your
+father intended to make a big cut next winter and clear off some of the
+debt. Suppose you try that yourself. It means a big outlay. Can you
+swing it? Remember, you haven't got much rope; and if you fail and smash
+it won't be a case of living on three or four thousand a year, but of
+earning five or six hundred a year to live on."
+
+"I hadn't thought of it in just that way," said Kent. "You see it's all
+new to me. But I'm going into it, sink or swim. My mind's made up."
+
+"I thought it would be," said Locke with satisfaction. "If I were you
+I'd take Wright into my confidence from the start. He is a good man, and
+thinks as much of your interests as if they were his own."
+
+Wright, called in, listened to Locke's succinct statement without much
+surprise. "Of course, I knew these things already in a general way," he
+commented.
+
+"I have decided to carry on the business," Joe told him. "What do you
+think of it?"
+
+"The carrying or the business?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"Well," said Wright slowly, "the business might be in worse shape--a lot
+worse. With your father handling it there would be no trouble. With
+you--I don't know."
+
+"That's not very encouraging," said Joe, endeavouring to smile at Locke,
+an effort not entirely successful. Locke said nothing.
+
+"I don't mean to be discouraging," said Wright. "It's a fact. I _don't_
+know. You see, you've never had a chance; you've no experience."
+
+"Well, I'm after it now," said Kent. "Will you stay with me while I get
+it?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Wright heartily.
+
+When Locke had gone Joe turned to his manager.
+
+"Now," he said, "will you please tell me what I ought to know about the
+business, just what we have on hand and what we must do to keep going? I
+don't know a thing about it, and I'm here to learn. I've got to. Make it
+as simple as you can. I'm not going to pretend I understand if I don't.
+Therefore I'll probably ask a lot of fool questions. You see, I'm
+showing you my hand, and I own up to you that there's nothing in it. But
+I won't show it to any one else. When I want to know things I'll come to
+you; but for all other people know to the contrary I'll be playing my
+own game. That is, till I'm capable of running the business without
+advice I'll run it on yours. I've got to make a bluff, and this is the
+only way I see of doing it. What do you think?"
+
+"I think," said Wright, "that it's the best thing you can do, though I
+wouldn't have suggested it myself. I'll give you the best I've got. An
+hour ago I was rather doubtful, but now I think you've got it in you to
+play a mighty good game of your own one of these days."
+
+Whereupon old Bob Wright and young Joe Kent shook hands with mutual
+respect--Wright because he had found that Kent was not a self-sufficient
+young ass, and Kent because Wright had treated him as a man instead of
+merely as an employer.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+In the course of a few weeks Joe Kent began to feel that he was making
+some progress. The business was no longer a mysterious machine that
+somehow produced money for his needs. It became a breathing, throbbing
+creature, sensitive to the touch, thriving with attention, languishing
+with neglect. It was a delicate organism, wonderfully responsive to the
+handling. Every action, every word, every hastily dictated letter had
+far reaching results. Conscientiously and humbly, as became a beginner,
+he came to the study of it.
+
+He began to meet his men. Not those with whom he came in daily contact
+in the office; but his foremen, tanned, weather-beaten, level-eyed
+logging bosses, silent for the most part, not at all certain how to take
+the "Old Man's" son, and apparently considering "yes" and "no" perfectly
+adequate contributions to conversation, who consumed his proffered
+cigars, kept their own opinions, and went their several ways.
+
+Kent was conscious that he was being held at arm's length; conscious
+that the steady eyes took note of his smart shoes, his well-pressed
+clothes, and his smooth cheeks. He did not know that the same critical
+eyes also noted approvingly his broad shoulders, deep chest, and firm
+jaw. He felt that the questions he asked and the conversation he tried
+to make were not the questions and conversation which his father would
+have addressed to them. But he was building better than he knew.
+
+Many old friends of William Kent dropped in to shake hands with his son,
+and one morning Joe was handed the card of Mr. Stanley Ackerman.
+
+"Tell him to walk in," said Joe.
+
+Mr. Ackerman walked in. He was tall and slim and gray and accurately
+dressed. Mr. Ackerman's business, if his varied pursuits might be thus
+consolidated, was that of a Director of Enterprises. He was on all sorts
+of directorates from banks to hospitals. He had promoted or caused to be
+promoted many corporate activities. He was identified in one way and
+another with a dozen financial and industrial concerns. He was the
+confidential friend and twin brother of Capital; and he was smooth, very
+smooth.
+
+His handshake expressed tender, delicate sympathy.
+
+"I should have called sooner, Mr. Kent, after the recent melancholy
+event," said he, "but that I feared to intrude. I knew your father very
+well, very well indeed. I hope to know his son as well--or better. These
+changes come to us all, but I was shocked, deeply shocked. I assure you,
+Mr. Kent, I--was--shocked."
+
+"Sit down, won't you?" said Joe. "Have a cigar?"
+
+"Not in the morning, thank you," said Ackerman. "My constitution won't
+stand it now. Don't mind me, though."
+
+He watched Joe strike a match. His gaze was very keen and measuring, as
+if the young man were a problem of some sort to be solved.
+
+"And how do you find it going?" he asked. "Quite a change for you, to be
+saddled with a big business at a moment's notice. If I recollect, you
+were at college till very recently. Yes? Unfortunate. Not that I would
+deprecate the value of education. Not at all. A most excellent thing.
+Fine training for the battle of life. But at the same time scarcely a
+practical preparation for the duties you have been called on so suddenly
+to assume."
+
+"That's a fact," said Joe. "Just at present I'd trade a couple of the
+years I spent there for one in the office. However, I'm learning slowly.
+Doing the best I can, you know."
+
+"No doubt, no doubt," returned Ackerman cordially. "If I had a son--I am
+sorry I haven't--and Providence in its inscrutable wisdom saw fit to
+remove me--we never can tell; as the Good Book says, Death comes like a
+thief in the night--that is how I would wish him to face the world.
+Bravely and modestly, as you are doing. No doubt you feel your
+responsibilities, eh?"
+
+"Well, yes," Joe admitted. "I have my experience to get, and the concern
+is pretty large. Naturally it worries me a little."
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Ackerman thoughtfully, "it's a pity your father never
+took action along the lines of a conversation I had with him a few
+months ago. I expressed surprise that he had never turned his business
+into a joint stock company, and--rather to _my_ surprise I confess, for
+he was a little old-fashioned in such matters--he said he had been
+thinking of doing so. He observed, and very truly, that he was as
+capable of managing his own affairs as any board of directors, but that
+if anything happened to him, such experienced advice would be of
+inestimable benefit to you. And then he spoke of the limited liability
+feature as desirable. Looking back at that conversation," said Mr.
+Ackerman with a gentle sigh, "it almost seems as if he had a
+premonition. I assure you that he spoke with the greatest earnestness,
+as if he had thought the matter over carefully and arrived at a definite
+conclusion. And yet I suppose nothing has been done in that direction,
+yet?"
+
+No, nothing had been done, Joe told him. In fact, this was the first
+intimation he had had that such a thing had entered his father's
+thoughts.
+
+That, said Mr. Ackerman, was too bad. It was a great responsibility for
+a young man--too great. Now, a board of experienced directors would
+share it, and they would have an active interest in advising properly.
+
+"Meaning that the advice I get now isn't proper?" asked Joe, with just a
+little tightening of the mouth.
+
+"Meaning nothing of the sort," Ackerman hastened to disclaim. "Don't
+misunderstand me. But you must admit that it is irresponsible. In the
+long run you pay the piper."
+
+"That's true enough," Joe admitted. "In the end it's up to me, of
+course."
+
+"Just so," said Mr. Ackerman. "That is what your father foresaw and
+intended to provide against. If he had been spared a few months longer I
+believe he would have formed a company, retaining the controlling
+interest himself, so that you might have had the benefit of the advice
+of a board of experienced directors."
+
+Joe Kent was quite sure his father would not have done anything of the
+kind, but he did not say so.
+
+Ackerman bestowed on him another measuring glance and proceeded:
+
+"You see, Mr. Kent, business history shows that, generally speaking, the
+collective wisdom of half a dozen men is greater than that of the
+individual. The exceptions only prove the rule. The weak points in any
+proposition rarely get past half a dozen experienced men. And then we
+must remember that influence makes for success. Naturally the influence
+of half a dozen representative men helps to get business as it helps the
+business to buy cheaply, and as it helps to transact business properly.
+Why,"--here Mr. Ackerman became prophetic--"I venture to say, Mr. Kent,
+that if this business of yours were turned into a joint stock company
+and the proper gentlemen interested, its volume would double in a very
+short time."
+
+"Perhaps so," said Joe doubtfully.
+
+"Why not do it?" said Mr. Ackerman, seizing the psychological moment. "I
+would take stock myself. I think I know of others who would. And as to
+forming and organizing the company, I need not say that any small
+knowledge I may have of such matters is entirely at your service."
+
+"Very good of you," said Joe. "It's a new idea to me. I don't think,
+though, that I quite like it. This is my business now, and I run it. If
+a company were formed I couldn't do that. I'd have to do as I was told.
+Of course I understand I'd have votes according to what stock I held,
+but it wouldn't be the same thing."
+
+"Nominally different only," Ackerman assured him. "Very properly you
+would retain a majority of the shares--that is, a controlling interest.
+Then you'd be made managing director, at a good salary. No doubt that
+would be the arrangement. So that you would have an assured income, a
+dividend on your stock, and practical control of the business, as well
+as the advice of experienced men and consequent freedom from a good deal
+of worry. If I were in your place--speaking as one who has seen a good
+many ups and downs in business--I should not hesitate."
+
+But in spite of this personal clinching argument young Kent did
+hesitate. And this hesitation so much resembled a plain mulish balk that
+Mr. Ackerman was a trifle disconcerted. Nevertheless he beamed upon the
+young man with tolerant good nature.
+
+"Well, well, a new proposition," said he. "Take time to think it
+over--take plenty of time. You must see its advantages. New capital
+brought in would permit the business to expand. It would pay off the
+debts----"
+
+"Debts!" said young Kent icily. "What debts?"
+
+"Why--ah"--Mr. Ackerman was again slightly disconcerted--"you must be
+aware of the mortgages existing, Mr. Kent."
+
+"I am," said Kent, "but how do you know about them? What business are
+they of yours?"
+
+"Tut, tut!" said Ackerman reprovingly. "I read a weekly commercial
+report, like other men. The mortgages are no secret."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Kent. "I shouldn't have spoken as I did. Fact
+is, I'm a little touchy on that subject."
+
+"Needlessly so," said Ackerman. "Most of my own property is mortgaged,
+and I don't consider it a disgrace. I can use the money to better
+advantage in other ways. Well, as I was saying, the new capital would
+expand the business, the advice of experienced gentlemen would make
+things easy for you; and if the property was put in at a good, liberal
+valuation--as of course it would be--your holding would be worth more
+than it is to-day."
+
+"That is, the experienced gentlemen would water the stock," said Kent.
+
+Mr. Ackerman reddened a little. "A liberal valuation isn't water," he
+replied. "Those who would buy into the concern wouldn't be apt to give
+you too much. Of course, they would desire to be perfectly fair."
+
+"Oh, of course," said Kent. "Well, Mr. Ackerman, I don't think we need
+discuss the matter further, for I've decided to keep on paddling my own
+little canoe."
+
+"Think it over, think it over," Ackerman urged.
+
+"I have thought it over," said Joe. "You see, Mr. Ackerman, I may not
+know much about this business, but I don't know any more about any
+other. So I might as well stick to it."
+
+"The plan I have outlined"--Ackerman began.
+
+"I don't like," Kent put in, smiling. "My position is this: I want to
+handle this business myself and make a success at it. I expect to make
+mistakes, but not the same mistake twice. I'm awfully obliged for your
+interest, but to be told what to do by a board of directors would spoil
+all my fun."
+
+"Fun!" echoed Mr. Ackerman, horrified. "My dear sir,
+business--is--not--fun!"
+
+"It is for me--about the bulliest fun I ever had in my life," said young
+Kent. "I never played a game I liked as well."
+
+Mr. Ackerman shook his head sadly. The young man was hopeless. "I
+suppose," he said casually, as he rose to go, "that in the event of a
+syndicate offering you a fair price for the whole concern, lock, stock,
+and barrel, you wouldn't sell?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," Joe replied.
+
+"Ah, well, youth is ever sanguine," said Mr. Ackerman. "Your energy and
+confidence do you credit, Mr. Kent, though I'm rather sorry you won't
+entertain the company idea. We could make this a very big business on
+that basis. Perhaps, later, you may come around to it. Anyway, I wish
+you luck. If I can assist you in any way at any time just let me know.
+Good morning. _Good_ morning! Remember, in _any_ way, at _any_ time."
+
+Joe, from his favourite position at the window, saw Mr. Ackerman emerge
+from the building and begin his dignified progress down the street.
+
+"I didn't like his stock proposition," he thought, "but I guess he isn't
+a bad old sport at bottom. Seems to mean well. I'm sorry I was rude to
+him."
+
+Just then Mr. Ackerman, looking up, caught his eye. Joe waved a
+careless, friendly hand. Mr. Ackerman so far forgot his dignity as to
+return the friendly salute, and smiled upward benignantly.
+
+"The damned young pup!" said Mr. Ackerman behind his smile.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+William Crooks, the old lumberman who had been the friend of the elder
+Kent, was big and broad and burly, and before the years had silvered his
+mane it was as red as any danger flag that ever wagged athwart steel
+rails. He held strong opinions, he used strong language, he was swift to
+anger, he feared no man on earth, and he knew the logging business from
+stump to market.
+
+He inhabited a huge, square, brick structure that would have given an
+architect chronic nightmare. Twenty odd years before he had called to
+him one Dorsey, by trade a builder. "Dorsey," said Crooks, "I want you
+to build me a house."
+
+Dorsey, who was a practical man, removed his pipe, scratched his head
+and asked: "What of?"
+
+"Red brick," said Crooks. He held out a sheet of foolscap. "Here's the
+number of rooms and the sizes of them."
+
+Dorsey scanned the paper. "What do you want her to cost?"
+
+"What she's worth, and a fair profit to you," said Crooks. "Get at her
+and finish her by frost. I'll want to move in by then."
+
+"All right," said Dorsey. "She'll be ready for you."
+
+By frost "she" was finished, and Crooks moved in. There he had lived
+ever since; and there he intended to live as long as he could. Kindly
+time had partially concealed the weird creation of Dorsey's brain by
+trees and creepers; here and there an added veranda or bow window was
+offered in mitigation of the original crime; but its stark, ungraceful
+outline remained a continual offence to the eye. That was outside.
+Inside it was different. The rooms were big and airy and well lighted.
+There was an abundance of open fireplaces, as became the residence of a
+man whose life had been spent in devastating forests, and the furniture
+and furnishings were practical and comfortable, for Bill Crooks hated
+"frills."
+
+In that house his children were born, and there three of them and his
+wife died. There Jean, his youngest girl, grew to womanhood, a straight,
+lithe, slender, dark-haired young tyrant, with his own fearlessness and
+directness of speech. She was known to her intimates as "Jack," and she
+and Joe Kent had been friends all their young lives.
+
+Since coming home Kent had seen little of her. He was very busy
+mastering details of the business, and either went back to his office in
+the evenings or spent them quietly at the club. But on the day of his
+interview with Mr. Ackerman it occurred to him that he should call upon
+Jack Crooks.
+
+When he opened the gate that evening he saw that the wide veranda was
+well occupied. Four young men were making exceedingly light conversation
+to two young women. William Crooks was nowhere visible. Miss Crooks came
+down the walk to meet him, and held out two slim hands in welcome.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you, Joe. I've been looking for you for days."
+
+"You see, I've been busy," said Kent. "And then, naturally, I haven't
+been going out much."
+
+She nodded sympathetic comprehension. "I understand, of course. Come up
+and be presented. I have a very charming visitor."
+
+"Any one I know?"
+
+"Edith Garwood. She's my guest for a few weeks. Have you met her?"
+
+Joe had never met Miss Garwood. He decided as he shook hands with her
+that this was his distinct loss. Edith Garwood was tall and fair and
+blue eyed, with the dainty bloom and colouring of a flower. Her smile
+was simply distracting. Her voice was low and musical, and her laughter
+carried a little trill that stuck in the memory like the first bird
+notes of spring. She seemed to be one of those rare girls who are made
+to be loved by everybody, madly adored by several, and finally captured
+by some undeservingly lucky man.
+
+[Illustration: Miss Crooks came down the walk to meet him ... "I'm so
+glad to see you, Joe. I've been looking for you for days"]
+
+At that moment she was holding a little court. Mallane, a young lawyer;
+Drew, of Drew & Son; Leadly, whose chief occupation was the
+dissemination of his father's money, which he had almost accomplished;
+and young Jolly, who honoured a bank with his presence by day, clustered
+around her closely. Each was quite positive that her glances and
+laughter held a meaning for him which the others did not share. The
+charmed circle, momentarily broken by the entrance of Kent, closed
+again. They talked at Miss Garwood, they postured at her, and when, now
+and then, they remembered the existence of their young hostess and
+included her in the conversation, it was evidently as a matter of duty
+only. Just then Edith Garwood was the only star in all the heavens.
+
+Joe drew chairs for himself and Miss Jack just outside the group.
+
+"Well?" she asked.
+
+"Quite, thank you."
+
+"I didn't mean that. Is it love at first sight with you, too?"
+
+"No chance for me," laughed Joe. "Competition is too keen. Besides,
+Jack, I've been in love with you for years."
+
+"Nonsense!" she said, so sharply that he looked at her in surprise. "I
+waive my prior claim," she added, with a laugh. "Confess, Joe! Isn't she
+the prettiest girl you ever saw?"
+
+"She seems to be a good deal of a peach," Joe admitted. "Is she related
+to Hugh Garwood, the president of the O. & N. Railway?"
+
+"Daughter," said Jack briefly. "His only child."
+
+Joe grinned. "Which probably accounts for the obvious devotion of
+Mallane and Leadly."
+
+"Don't be so cynical; it isn't nice. She can't help it, can she?"
+
+"Of course not. I was speaking of the men."
+
+"Well, she's very pretty and charming. If I were a young man I'd fall in
+love with her. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see you smitten."
+
+Joe reddened a trifle, conscious that while he had been talking to Jack
+his eyes had been on Miss Garwood. Once or twice her glance had met his
+and she had given him a friendly smile. It seemed to hint at an
+understanding between them--as if she would have been very glad to have
+him change places with one of the others. And yet it was absolutely
+frank and open.
+
+Kent, being an average young man, did not analyze the quality of it. He
+merely felt that he liked Edith Garwood, and she probably did not
+dislike him. At the same time he began to feel a slight aversion to the
+four men who monopolized her; but he explained this to himself quite
+honestly on the ground that it was boorish of them to neglect Jack
+Crooks for a guest, no matter how charming the latter might be. His
+reply to Jack's prediction was interrupted by William Crooks.
+
+"Well, young people," said the old lumberman, emerging upon the veranda,
+"why don't you come into the house and have some music?"
+
+"It's cooler out here, dad," said Jack. "Sit down and make yourself at
+home and have a smoke. Here's Joe."
+
+Crooks laid a huge hand on Kent's shoulder. "I want to talk over some
+business with you, Joe. You won't mind if I take him away for half an
+hour, Jack?"
+
+"Not a bit, dad. Don't keep him all night, though."
+
+"I won't," he promised, smiling at her fondly. "Come on, Joe. We'll go
+to the library."
+
+William Crooks's library held few books. Such as there were mainly dealt
+with the breeding, training, and diseases of horses and dogs. Stuffed
+birds and fish, guns and rods adorned the walls. A huge table in the
+centre of the room bore a mass of papers in which pipes, cartridge
+cases, trout flies, and samples of various woods mingled in gorgeous
+confusion. Crooks laid an open box of cigars on top of the disarray.
+
+"Well, Joe," he asked, "how you makin' it?"
+
+"I don't quite know yet," Kent replied. "I'm just beginning to learn the
+ropes around the office. So far I like it."
+
+"You'll like it better," said Crooks. "You come to me if you get stuck;
+but work things out for yourself if you can. Now, about those notes I've
+indorsed!"
+
+"Yes," said Kent. "I don't see how I'm to take them up just yet."
+
+"Nobody wants you to," said Crooks. "Your father helped me out often
+enough. I was doing the same for him, and what I'd do for him I'll do
+for you. Don't worry about the notes or renewals. Only--I may as well
+talk straight to you, Joe--I don't want to increase my liabilities
+without I have to. Understand, if it's a case of need I'll back you up
+to any amount in reason, but if you can worry along without more
+accommodation I wish you would."
+
+"It's very good of you," said Joe. "I'll try to get along. Anyway, I
+never thought of asking you for more endorsements."
+
+"Well, you think of it if you need them," said Crooks gruffly. "Come to
+me as if I were your father, boy. I'll go with you as far as I would
+with him, and that's to the rim-ice of Hades."
+
+For acknowledgment Joe took his hand and shook it, an action which
+embarrassed the old lumber baron exceedingly.
+
+"All right, all right," he growled. "Don't be a blamed young fool. I'm
+not going away anywhere."
+
+Joe laughed. "I'm glad of that. I'll ask your advice pretty often, Mr.
+Crooks. By the way, what would you think of turning my business into a
+joint stock company? I don't fancy the idea myself."
+
+"Who's been talking to you?" demanded Crooks.
+
+"Well, Mr. Ackerman dropped in this morning."
+
+"What did he want?"
+
+"I don't suppose he wanted anything in particular. He just happened in,
+being in town. This came up in the course of conversation."
+
+"Son," said Crooks, "Ackerman doesn't go anywhere or see anybody without
+he wants something. You tie into that. What did he talk about?"
+
+Joe told him. Crooks listened intently, chewing his cigar.
+
+"He suggested the same thing to your father, and your father refused to
+consider it," he said. "Now he comes to you. Huh!" He smoked in silence
+for several moments. "I wonder what his game is?" he concluded
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Why, I suppose if he organized the company he'd get a block of stock
+for his services," said Joe, and he thought the comment particularly
+shrewd. "That's all I see in it, Mr. Crooks."
+
+"You don't know a thing about it," growled the lumberman bluntly. "If
+you fell in with his proposition he'd kick you out when he got ready."
+
+"No," said Joe. "He suggested that I retain a majority of the shares."
+
+Crooks eyed him pityingly. "In about six months he'd issue more and cut
+your throat."
+
+"How could he do that unless I consented?"
+
+"You would consent--the way they'd put it up to you. However, you won't
+deal with him if you have any sense. Now, look here. You're not
+twenty-five, just starting business. You think all there is to it is to
+cut your logs, bring down your drives, cut them up into lumber, and the
+demand will take care of the rest. That's how it used to be. It isn't so
+now. Timber is getting scarcer and prices are going up. There is a
+scramble for what timber limits are left, and the men with the pull get
+them. Same way with contracts. You'll find it out. The big concerns are
+eating up the little ones in our line, just as in others. That's why
+you'd better keep clear of any proposals of Ackerman's."
+
+"I will," Joe promised. At the same time he thought Crooks unduly
+pessimistic.
+
+"Now about timber," the old lumberman went on. "I'm starting men to
+cruise all north of Rat Lake to the divide. You'd better send a couple
+of cruisers into Wind River and let them work east over that stuff, so
+you will be in shape to bid for it. That was what your father intended
+to do."
+
+"We have two men there now," Joe told him.
+
+"Do you know how this bidding works?" asked Crooks.
+
+"The government calls for tenders and accepts the highest," Joe replied.
+
+"Theoretically," said Crooks. "Practically, if you're not a friend of
+their rotten outfit you might tender the mint and not get a look in.
+They used to have sales by public auction, and those were square enough;
+though sometimes the boys pooled on 'em. Now what happens is this: The
+government may open any timber for sale on any man's application, and
+they are supposed to advertise for tenders. If the applicant isn't a
+friend they won't open it. If he is, they advertise in a couple of
+issues of some backwoods paper that no one sees, nobody else tenders,
+and he gets it for a song. Of course some one high up gets a rake-off.
+Only you can't prove it."
+
+"How do you buy, then?" Joe asked. "You're not friendly to the present
+government, and I'm not."
+
+Crooks hesitated for a moment.
+
+"You'll have to know sooner or later," he said. "I tender in the name of
+another man, and I pay him from ten to twenty per cent. of the amount I
+tender for the bare use of his name--if I get what I want. Oh, I know
+it's rotten, but I have to stand for it or shut down. Your father did
+the same thing; you'll have to do it, too. I'm not defending it. I'll
+tell you more. This infernal political graft is everywhere. You can't
+supply a foot of lumber to a contractor on any public work unless you
+stand in."
+
+Joe whistled astonishment, not unmixed with disbelief.
+
+"Sounds pretty stiff, hey?" said Crooks. "Well, here's something else
+for you to digest. There's a concern called the Central Lumber Company,
+capitalized for a hundred thousand, composed of a young lawyer, a
+bookkeeper, a real estate man, and an insurance agent--individuals, mind
+you, who couldn't raise ten thousand dollars between them--who have
+bought in timber lands and acquired going lumber businesses worth
+several millions. What do you think of that?"
+
+Joe did not know what to think of it, and said so. The suspicion that
+Crooks was stringing him crossed his mind, but the old lumberman was
+evidently in deadly earnest.
+
+"And now I'll tell you one thing more," said Crooks, instinctively
+lowering his voice. "I had an offer for my business some time ago, and I
+turned it down. It came through a firm of lawyers for clients unnamed.
+Since then I've had a run of bad luck. My sales have fallen off, I have
+trouble in my mills, and the railway can't supply me with cars. There
+isn't a thing I can fasten on, either."
+
+"Oh, you must be mistaken," said Joe. It seemed to him that bad luck,
+which often runs in grooves, had given rise to groundless suspicions in
+Crooks's mind.
+
+"I'm not mistaken," the latter replied. "I'm playing with a cold deck,
+and though I can't see a blame thing wrong with the deal I notice I draw
+rags every time. That's enough for me. I'm going to find out why,
+because if I don't I may as well quit playing." He banged his big fist
+viciously on the table. "I'll know the reason why!" he thundered. "I
+will, by the Glory Eternal! If any gang of blasted high-bankers think
+they can run me out of my own business without a fight they miss their
+guess."
+
+His white hair bristled and his cold blue eyes blazed. Thirty years
+before he had been a holy terror with fists and feet. Few men then had
+cared to arouse Bill Crooks. Now the old fighting spirit surged up and
+took possession of him, and he was proceeding to stronger language when
+Miss Jack tapped imperatively at the door and opened it.
+
+"May I come in? Dad, this isn't playing fair. You've kept Joe all
+evening. Edith and I have been waiting alone for half an hour. Come in,
+Edith, and tell him what you think of him."
+
+"Well, you girls had four young fellows without Joe. How many do you
+want?"
+
+She raised inquiring eyebrows at his tone. "Anything the matter, daddy?
+I didn't mean to intrude."
+
+"You never do that, Jack," he smiled at her fondly. "Business
+bothers--nothing to worry about. It'll be all right 'when the drive
+comes down!'"
+
+"That always means I mustn't ask questions. I won't; but for being rude
+to me you shall sing the song. Edith wants to hear it."
+
+"Oh, do please, Mr. Crooks," said Miss Garwood sweetly.
+
+"I've no more voice than a crow, and Jack knows it," said Crooks, but
+followed his daughter meekly to the piano in the next room.
+
+"'When the Drive Comes Down,' as sung by Mr. William Crooks, Selected
+Record," Jack announced in a metallic voice. She struck a chord, and
+Crooks, his face beaming and his ill humour forgotten, with the
+preliminary whine of the genuine shanty vocalist struck into an ancient
+ballad of the river, which was his especial favourite:
+
+    "Come all ye gallant shanty boys, an' listen while I sing,
+    We've worked six months in cruel frosts, but soon we'll take our
+      fling.
+    The ice is black an' rotten, an' the rollways is piled high,
+    So boost upon yer peavey sticks while I do tell ye why-y-y.
+
+    For it's break the roll ways out, me boys, an' let the big stick
+      slide,
+    An' file yer corks, an' grease yer boots, an' start upon the
+      drive,
+    A hundred miles of water is the nearest way to town,
+    So tie into the tail of her, an' keep her hustlin' down-n-n."
+
+He roared it in a heavy bass, beating time with a thunderous fist.
+Jack's clear alto and Joe's strong baritone struck into the first
+refrain:
+
+    "When the drive comes dow-un, when the jam comes down,
+    Oh, it's then we're paid our money, an' it's then we own the
+      town.
+    All the gutters runs with whiskey when the shanty boys so frisky
+    Sets their boot corks in the sidewalks when the drive is
+      down-n-n."
+
+"Splendid!" cried Miss Garwood. "More, Mr. Crooks!" He nodded at her
+indulgently, and let his big voice go:
+
+    "There's some poor lads will never lift a peavey-hook again,
+    Nor hear the trees crack wid the frost, nor feel a warm spring
+      rain.
+    'Twas fallin' timber, rowlin' logs that handed them their time;
+    It was their luck to get it so--it may be yours or mine.
+
+    "But break the rollways out, me lads, an' let the big sticks
+      slide,
+    For one man killed within the woods ten's drownded on the drive.
+    So make yer sowls before ye take the nearest way to town
+    While the lads that be's in Heaven watch the drive go down-n-n.
+
+    "When the drive starts dow-un, when the drive starts down,
+    Oh, it's every lad in Heaven he wud swop his golden crown
+    For a peavey stick again, an' a soakin' April rain,
+    An' to birl a log beneath him as he drives the river down-n-n."
+
+"Oh, I don't like that verse," protested Miss Garwood. "It's sad,
+fatalistic, reckless--anything and everything it shouldn't be. I thought
+shanty songs were more cheerful."
+
+"Some of 'em are cheerful enough," said Crooks, winking at Joe, who had
+the grace to blush.
+
+"But most describe the lingering deaths of true lovers," said Jack. "A
+shantyman requires sentiment or murder, and preferably both, in his
+music. Dad, sing us 'The Fate of Lovely May.'"
+
+"I will not," Crooks refused. "It has five hundred verses, more or less.
+I'm going to bed. You can lose sleep if you want to."
+
+"Don't take that hint, Joe," laughed Jack. "You're not company."
+
+"Hint nothing," said Crooks. "Jack knows it wasn't."
+
+"I'm a business man now," said Joe. "I feel it my duty to set an example
+to frivolous young people."
+
+"Come around often, the way you used to," said Jack.
+
+Miss Garwood, obviously, could not second the invitation in words: but
+much can be expressed by a pair of blue eyes. Joe felt that, unless he
+was an absolute dub at interpreting such things, his visits would not be
+unwelcome to her.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Wright stalked into Joe's office one morning and slapped an open letter
+down on his desk. Evidently he was red hot.
+
+"What do you think of that?" he demanded. The communication was brief
+and business-like:
+
+    BARKER & SMITH
+    Contractors--Builders
+
+    Oshkook, June 10th.
+
+    The Kent Lumber Co., Falls City.
+
+    Dear Sirs: Referring to our correspondence as to a quantity of
+    lumber f.o.b. Falls City, we would say that we will not require
+    same from you, having been quoted a more favourable rate.
+    Regretting that in this instance we must place our order
+    elsewhere, we are,
+
+                                    -- Yours truly, Barker & Smith.
+
+Joe whistled dismally. Barker & Smith were large contractors and retail
+dealers. The quantity of lumber referred to was large, and the contract
+had been all but closed; in fact, he was not sure that it had not been
+closed. After consultation with Wright he had quoted the firm a rock
+bottom cash price because he needed the money more than the lumber. Now
+he was thrown down hard.
+
+"Well, some one underbid us," he said, trying to hide his
+disappointment. "That's all there is to it."
+
+"Nobody could underbid us and get out even," said Wright. "We figured
+our margin down to a hair-line. I'll bet a hundred to one they can't get
+it cheaper without stealing."
+
+"They say they can, and I suppose it goes," said Joe wearily. "Hang it,
+I thought it was as good as closed!"
+
+"Same here; and I'm not sure it isn't," said Wright. "They practically
+agreed to take the stuff from us."
+
+"Show the correspondence to Locke then, and see what he says," Joe
+suggested.
+
+But Locke, after he had waded through the papers, tossed them back to
+Wright. "No good," he said. "What's here doesn't amount to a contract,
+though it comes mighty close to it."
+
+"It comes so close to it that we had cars run up the spur and started to
+load," said Wright. "The understanding was--"
+
+"It had no business to be," Locke interrupted. "You've shown me all the
+papers in the matter, haven't you? Very well, I tell you they don't
+amount to an agreement. They're simply a series of proposals,
+rejections, and requests for other proposals, though you came very
+nearly agreeing. While you're dickering some one cuts in with a better
+rate and they call it off. You can't hold them."
+
+"But nobody could underbid us; we quoted 'em rock bottom," Wright
+persisted. That was the main point in his mind.
+
+"Oh, pshaw, Wright, have some sense!" snapped Locke. "That may be an
+excuse, or it may not. It's quite immaterial. Can't you see that?"
+
+"That's all right from a lawyer's standpoint, but not from ours," said
+Wright. "Barker & Smith use a lot of lumber, and they're not in business
+to lose money. I say nobody could underbid us. They lie when they say
+they got a better rate. What do they want to lie for? It's money out of
+their pockets."
+
+"I'm a lawyer, not a mind reader," Locke reminded him. "Your quotations
+were f.o.b. Falls City. It's just possible the freight rate may have
+something to do with it."
+
+Wright returned to the office, pulled out his tariff books and compared
+the rate from Falls City to Oshkook with rates from other competitive
+points to the latter place.
+
+"We've got 'em skinned there, too," he soliloquized. "They can't lay
+down any lumber cheaper than ours. It beats me."
+
+For an hour he pulled at a blackened brier and pondered the question.
+Then he went to Kent.
+
+"This thing worries me," he said. "I can't see through it. I think I'll
+take a run over to Oshkook and have a talk with Barker & Smith."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Joe, his pride up in arms. "We don't want to go
+begging for their business. We quoted 'em a good rate. If they don't
+want our stuff at that let 'em go to the devil." He was sore and
+stiff-necked, as is the wont of youth when things go wrong.
+
+But the older man persisted:
+
+"I don't care so much that we lost the contract; I want to find out, if
+I can, why we lost it. I know we weren't underbid, and I want to know
+why they lied about it. It isn't a case of soliciting business; it's a
+case of finding out why we don't get what's coming to us, and that's a
+mighty vital question to any concern. We've sold Barker & Smith before,
+and never had any friction. We can't afford to ride the high horse just
+now. There's something behind this, and it's up to us to find out what."
+
+Kent recognized the force of the argument. "I was wrong. Go ahead and
+find out all you can."
+
+Wright took train for Oshkook and dropped into Barker & Smith's office.
+Barker was out, and he saw Smith.
+
+"I called about the lumber we quoted you a price on," said Wright.
+
+"Oh, that?" said Smith, who was plainly uneasy. "Yes. Let's see! We
+didn't come to terms, did we?"
+
+"No, we didn't." said Wright. "We quoted you a price that left us
+practically no margin. I don't see how any one could give a lower
+quotation. In fact, I wouldn't have believed it possible if your letter
+hadn't said so. I tell you whoever underbid us will lose money by it, or
+else you'll get poor stuff."
+
+"We won't accept poor stuff," said Smith. "As to whether the other
+people lose money or not, that's their affair. I presume they know their
+own business."
+
+"Would you mind telling me who they are?" Wright asked.
+
+The question appeared to embarrass Smith.
+
+"Why, upon my word, Wright, I don't exactly know," he replied. "We got a
+number of quotations, of course. Barker has been looking after it.
+Better see him."
+
+"You'd have the information in the office, wouldn't you?" Wright
+pressed.
+
+"I suppose so, I suppose so; but--here, you see Barker. He knows all
+about it. I don't. Sorry to leave you, but I've got an appointment." And
+he left Wright to wait for the senior partner.
+
+When Barker came in, fully two hours later, his surprise at seeing
+Wright was so much overdone that the latter knew Smith had been talking
+to him.
+
+"Well, now, look here," said Barker when Wright had opened the matter,
+"I don't want to talk about this. We got a dozen quotations and picked
+out the one that suited us. That's all there is to it. I'm not going to
+tell you where we buy or what we buy for. That's our business."
+
+"You said we were underbid, and that's my business," said Wright. "I
+tell you we weren't."
+
+"That," said Barker with first-class indignation, "amounts to a
+reflection on our veracity."
+
+"I wouldn't put it that way," retorted Wright. "Your letter was a darned
+poor lie, if you want my opinion of it. Now, hold your horses for a
+minute while I talk. No one quoted you a better rate then we did; I know
+that. And I know that transportation charges cut no figure, either. I'm
+not kicking, understand, but I do want to know why we didn't land the
+contract. We've done business with you before and hope to do business
+with you again. Where do we fall down? Why are you throwing it into us?
+What do we have to figure on besides cost, next time you ask us for a
+quotation?"
+
+"Better wait till I ask you," said Barker.
+
+"No, because this is a serious thing for us. I want to make it plain
+that we recognize your right to buy anywhere, and for any price you
+choose to pay. That's all right. You needn't have given any reason at
+all. But the reason you did give was not the true one, and we both know
+it. Now, man to man, Mr. Barker, tell me what we're up against. Why
+didn't we get the contract?"
+
+"Well," said Barker hesitatingly, "there is something in what you say. I
+don't mind telling you this much: There are a holy lot of wires in our
+business, and we have to stand in with the people who pull them, see?
+Sometimes we have to buy where we're told, no matter what the price is.
+We get square in other ways. That's about what happened in this case,
+otherwise you would have got the order."
+
+Wright felt quite elated when he took his departure, for he had
+justified his contention that they had not been underbidden. Wright's
+business was to cut logs into lumber and sell the lumber. William Kent
+had looked after the logging end of the concern. The limits, the camps,
+and the drives were his field. What logs he did not sell he handed over
+to Wright and thought no more about, knowing that they would be worked
+up into everything from rough boards to matched flooring. Wright, then,
+having ascertained the reason of the throw down, accepted it
+philosophically as arising from circumstances beyond his control. But
+young Kent, when he received his manager's report, was not so
+philosophic.
+
+"Pretty rotten state of affairs if people have to buy where they are
+told," he fumed. "Nice free country we inhabit! I never took much stock
+in such yarns, but I'm beginning to see that there may be something in
+them."
+
+He took his troubles to Crooks, who listened, growled profane comment,
+but offered no advice. When Kent had gone he went to Locke's office.
+Locke heard him with attention.
+
+"What does the boy think about it?" he asked.
+
+"So far," Crooks replied, "he's more indignant because Barker & Smith
+have to buy somewhere else than because he can't sell to them. Same
+thing in one way, of course. But he's looking at it from what he thinks
+is their standpoint. Says it's an outrage that they have to buy where
+they're told."
+
+"Now I wonder," said Locke thoughtfully, "if we may go a step further? I
+wonder if they are told where not to buy?"
+
+"By George!" exclaimed Crooks.
+
+"It proves nothing," said Locke. "It may not be especially directed at
+Kent."
+
+"I'll bet it is," said Crooks. "I'm losing good customers myself without
+reason. I can stand it, but Joe can't. He needs good luck to pull him
+through as it is."
+
+"What in thunder do you suspect anyway?" asked Locke. "A combine?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied Crooks. "I've not been asked to join any ring
+to boost prices; but I have been asked to sell out. So has Kent. We
+won't do it, and immediately our businesses suffer."
+
+"That is, you think somebody is forcing your hand?"
+
+"That's what I think. If Barker had told the truth he'd have said he'd
+been ordered not to buy from Kent."
+
+"Well, if any one is hammering you he'll have to show his hand sooner or
+later," said Locke. "Take your medicine till you can get hold of one
+definite illegal act susceptible of proof beyond all question. Then
+we'll simply raise the roof."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+In less than a week from their first meeting, Edith Garwood and Joe Kent
+were giving a very fair imitation of a flirtation. Joe, as has been said
+before, was merely an average young man. He was not genuinely or at all
+in love at first; but he was strongly attracted, and he played the
+pleasant game without much thought of consequences. And Edith Garwood,
+being so constituted that admiration was as the breath of life to her,
+entered into it with zest.
+
+Not that she confined herself to Joe. Mallane, Leadly, and half a dozen
+others basked in the sunshine of her smiles, and she held the balance
+fairly level, enjoying her power. Thus jealousies sprang up which
+threatened to disrupt the _entente cordiale_ normally existing in the
+younger set of Falls City. These were by no means confined to the young
+men, for certain young ladies found themselves suddenly deserted by
+cavaliers to whose loyalty they would have sworn, and were much
+displeased thereby.
+
+These things bore somewhat hardly on Jack Crooks. She was a frank,
+unspoiled, straight-forward girl, and loyalty to her friends was one of
+her distinguishing features. But she was very human, and the general
+male adoration of her guest made her just a little tired. No young
+hostess likes to be completely outshone by a visitor, even a very lovely
+one, and to find herself practically overlooked by the young men of her
+own town was a new and unpleasant experience.
+
+"I thought Joe, anyway, had more sense," she reflected. "She doesn't
+care for him any more than for the others, and he ought to see it. Oh,
+well, let him burn his fingers. I don't care."
+
+But she did care, because he was a very old friend, and she rather
+resented the pumping process to which Miss Garwood subjected her one
+evening. That young lady, after eliciting certain information as to the
+habits, characters, and worldly prospects of several young gentlemen, at
+last came around to Kent, a sequence which was suspicious in itself.
+
+"Now your Mr. Kent, dear--tell me about him!"
+
+"He's not _my_ Mr. Kent," said Jack, a shade of red stealing into her
+cheeks. "Joe's a nice boy, quite the nicest I know. We played together
+when we were kids--that is, he condescended to amuse me when he was nine
+and I was five, and that's quite a concession for a boy, isn't it?
+Lately he's been away at college, and so we haven't seen much of each
+other."
+
+"His father died recently. He is the only son, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes. And his mother died when he was a little fellow, so he is quite
+alone. He is carrying on the business himself."
+
+"It's a big business, isn't it? Somebody said the late Mr. Kent was
+quite wealthy."
+
+Jack's brows drew together a little. She disliked these questions,
+perfectly natural though they were.
+
+"I believe he was; that is, of course, he owned mills and timber limits
+and so on. I suppose Joe is well off, but he has never confided in me."
+
+"But he may some day?" The unmistakable meaning in the words brought the
+red to Jack's cheeks again. She turned the question carelessly.
+
+"Oh, perhaps, when he is in a confidential mood. He always was a clam,
+though."
+
+"Jack, dear," said Miss Garwood, "look at me. Is there anything between
+you and Mr. Kent?"
+
+"Not a blessed thing," said Jack honestly. "Why?"
+
+"I wanted to make sure I wasn't trespassing," replied Miss Garwood
+lightly.
+
+"Well, you're not," said Jack. "Now let me ask a question: Have you
+fallen in love with him?"
+
+"No, not exactly," said Miss Garwood. "But--well, dearie, I half suspect
+that he has fallen in love with me."
+
+In spite of herself Jack winced. It was what she had told herself, but
+to hear it from Edith Garwood's careless lips was different. And yet why
+should she care? Joe was no more to her than any other old friend.
+Naturally he would fall in love some day and marry. Perhaps Edith, in
+spite of her denial, did care for him. In that case-- She gave herself a
+mental shake and met the curious look in her guest's blue eyes squarely.
+
+"I don't see how he could help it," she said truthfully. "He isn't the
+only one, either. Shall you marry him, Edith?"
+
+Edith Garwood laughed, well pleased, for she liked to be told of her
+conquests. "It's rather early to say," she replied. "You see, dear, he
+hasn't asked me yet. And if he did, there are all sorts of things to be
+considered."
+
+"Such as what?" asked Jack. "If you love one another that's the main
+thing, isn't it?"
+
+"You dear, unsophisticated child!" laughed Miss Garwood. "That's only
+one thing. We should have to live after we were married, you see."
+
+"Well, I suppose Joe has enough money for that," Jack commented. "And
+then you have plenty of money yourself, or your father has."
+
+"Yes," Miss Garwood agreed; "but papa has his own ideas of what would be
+a suitable match for me. I'm not sure he would approve of Joe--I mean
+Mr. Kent. Confidentially, Jack, how much do you suppose he is worth?"
+
+"I never supposed," said Jack shortly. "His income may be one thousand
+or ten thousand a year; I don't know. You aren't marrying him for his
+money."
+
+"I haven't decided to marry him at all, you goose," said Miss Garwood
+lightly. "It will be time enough to make up my mind when he asks me."
+
+Nevertheless she lay awake for half an hour that night, thinking. Her
+flirtation with Joe had reached a point for thought. She wondered how
+Hugh Garwood would regard him as a prospective son-in-law. Finding the
+answer rather doubtful, she sighed, turned her facile mind to something
+else, and almost immediately slept.
+
+For hours after her guest slumbered, Jack Crooks stared from her bed at
+the treetops outside the window, and watched the patch of moonlight on
+the floor slowly shift and finally disappear. And this sleeplessness was
+the more unaccountable because she told herself again that she didn't
+care whether Joe married Edith or not. She was quite honest about it.
+
+"But I didn't like her questions about his money," she reflected. "She
+has or will have enough for both. I know if I were in love--which thank
+goodness I'm not--the amount of money a young man had would be the last
+thing I'd think of. I don't believe dad would think of it either, just
+so we had enough to live on, and good prospects. Of course not. She
+can't think much of Joe if she lets that stand in the way. If he isn't
+exactly rich he can't be poor. Mr. Kent was as well off as dad, I should
+think. Oh, dear! I've simply _got_ to go to sleep." And finally she did,
+just as the faintest light grew in the east.
+
+Meanwhile, Joe Kent was doing a little soul searching himself, without
+coming to any definite conclusion. He liked Edith Garwood, and he
+suffered acute jealousy when she accepted the marked attentions of
+others; but to save his life he couldn't make up his mind whether he
+would care to look at her across his breakfast coffee as long as they
+both should live. The question of money occurred to him, but not as an
+important factor. He knew that old Hugh Garwood, the president of the O.
+& N. Railway, had it to burn, to throw at the birds, to stuff cats with,
+and half a dozen other ways of disposition. But he himself had enough to
+keep a wife in the modest comfort which had always been his. He was
+clean, healthy, well educated, and owned a business which, though
+encumbered, was perfectly solvent. Therefore he considered himself,
+without egotism, eligible for the hand of any girl, no matter how
+wealthy her father might be.
+
+But apart from the question of whether he loved Edith Garwood or not was
+the somewhat embarrassing one of whether she loved him. It was all right
+to flirt, to play the two-handed game for fun. But suppose it was for
+marbles; suppose one took it seriously----
+
+"Hang it," said young Kent to himself, "I don't know whether I've got
+the real thing or not; and I don't know whether she has been stringing
+me along or not. But if she hasn't been it's pretty nearly up to me to
+come across with a formal proposal. I wish I knew where I was at. I
+wonder if I could get a line from Jack?"
+
+From which the experienced will readily deduce that young Mr. Kent was
+somewhat rattled and a little afraid of the future, but not altogether
+unwilling to pay for his fun like a man.
+
+His endeavour to sound Miss Crooks was by no means a success. With
+unwonted density she did not or would not see the drift of his
+questions, framed with what he considered great subtlety; and when he
+became more direct she went to the point with embarrassing candour:
+
+"Do you want to marry her, or don't you?" she asked.
+
+"Why, Jack, I'll be hanged if I know," he admitted.
+
+"Well, when you make up your mind, ask her," said Jack. "Meanwhile don't
+try to pump me. I don't know anything about her sentiments, and if I did
+I wouldn't tell you."
+
+So Joe had to go it blind. The flirtation, however, progressed. One
+night the moon, rising gorgeous and serene above a notch in the hills,
+discovered Edith Garwood and Joe Kent seated prosaically upon a huge log
+by the river side, both very tongue-tied, and both apparently absorbed
+in the engrossing pastime of tossing pebbles into the black water and
+seeing the rings spread. In fact it had come to a showdown. It was
+distinctly Joe's play, but he held up his hand. It was provoking, from
+Miss Garwood's standpoint.
+
+"I think," she said, "that we should go home."
+
+"Oh, not yet; it's early," said Joe.
+
+Pause. Miss Garwood sighed inaudibly but impatiently, and her fingers
+played nervously with a ring. Joe stared blankly at the water. The ring,
+escaping from the lady's hand, fell tinkling on the beach pebbles.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, "I've dropped my ring!"
+
+She knelt at once and began to search for it in the semi-darkness. So
+did Joe. Quite by accident her slim white hand came in contact with his
+broad brown one. And the natural thing happened.
+
+"Mr. Kent!"
+
+"Yes--Edith!"
+
+"Please!"
+
+But she swayed toward him slightly. Accepting the situation, Joe Kent's
+unoccupied hand and arm encircled her waist with considerable facility.
+He even applied gentle pressure. She yielded a little, but protested:
+
+"Mr. Kent--Joe!"
+
+"Yes, dear!"
+
+"You shouldn't--I shouldn't. I never gave you any reason to think that I
+thought that you thought--I mean you couldn't think I did, could you?"
+Which confusion of speech went to show that the usually composed Miss
+Garwood was slightly rattled. She had created the situation and she felt
+it slipping beyond her control. Joe, who had accepted it recklessly,
+drew a long breath and made the plunge.
+
+"I hope you do. I--I love you, Edith." He wondered if the words rang
+true. To him they sounded hollow and forced. But Miss Garwood's waist
+yielded a little more. The fingers of her disengaged hand clasped the
+lapel of his coat and played with it, and her sweet blue eyes looked up
+pleadingly, trustfully, into his brown ones.
+
+"Joe," she murmured, "I don't know what to say. I'm not sure, but I half
+suspect that I--I--oh!"
+
+The exclamation was smothered, for again the natural thing had happened.
+
+Five minutes afterward Miss Garwood smoothed her hair and said
+irrelevantly:
+
+"But we haven't found my ring!"
+
+"Good old ring," said Joe, producing it from his pocket.
+
+"Joe!" she cried in unaffected astonishment. "Did you have it there all
+the time?"
+
+"I found it pretty early in the game," he acknowledged without shame.
+"I'll buy you another to-morrow."
+
+The dim light hid the sudden gravity of her features. "Do you mean an
+engagement ring, Joe?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Are we really engaged?"
+
+"Simple process, isn't it? I guess we are."
+
+Miss Garwood dug a daintily shod foot into the sand. This was getting
+serious.
+
+"But we ought to have papa's consent first."
+
+"Well, I'll take a run over to your town and tell him about it," said
+Joe carelessly. "Matter of form, I suppose. I'll look after that in a
+day or two."
+
+Miss Garwood laughed uneasily. "It's plain that you don't know him. I
+think you would better leave that to me--about our engagement, I mean.
+And meantime we won't say anything about it to anybody."
+
+"I don't like that," said Joe frankly. Having made the plunge he was
+ready to stay in the water. "Why shouldn't we announce it? Do you mean
+your father wouldn't consent?"
+
+"I doubt if he would, at first," she replied, apparently with equal
+frankness. "You see he expects me--please don't be offended--but he
+expects me to make what is called a good marriage."
+
+"Do you mean he expects you to marry for money?"
+
+"No, not altogether. But money and social position are desirable." Thus
+early she sought to provide an avenue of retreat.
+
+Joe stared at her, his pride hurt. It had never occurred to him that his
+own social position was not as good as any one's. He was received
+everywhere he wished to go; of fashionable society and the grades and
+jealousies of it he knew little and cared less. He had no social
+ambitions whatever, and his own modest place was perfectly assured.
+
+"I don't quite get it," said he. "I have enough to live on. And I
+suppose I could butt into society, if that's what you mean."
+
+She explained gently, shouldering the responsibility upon her father. In
+any event they could not marry at once. Then let their engagement remain
+a secret between them. She sighed with relief when she carried her
+point, for it gave her time to pause and reflect. Joe had swept her away
+a little, for she really liked him. Now she saw things clearly once
+more. Relative values emerged. Even a temporary engagement to a
+comparatively poor, obscure young man would never do; that is, it must
+not be made public. But she was given to following the line of the least
+resistance. It never occurred to her to doubt that he was genuinely in
+love, and she hated a scene. Later it would be an easy thing to break
+with him. Meanwhile she would have what fun she could out of it, for Joe
+was really very nice.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+As a matter of fact Kent was rather relieved when Miss Garwood's visit
+ended. Whether he had made a mistake or not he was ready to abide by it;
+but he found himself in a false position, and he greatly disliked to
+witness the open attentions of numerous young men, to which he could not
+very well object. However, he had a number of other things, just as
+important and considerably more pressing, to think about.
+
+For instance, there was the question of car shortage. The Peninsular
+Railway, which was the only line serving Falls City, seemed to have no
+rolling stock available. Promises were forthcoming in plenty--but no
+cars. Complaints of delayed shipments from indignant purchasers poured
+down on Kent in a daily deluge. He and Wright besieged the manager, the
+traffic superintendent, and the dispatchers, demanding flats and
+boxes--anything on wheels--and by dint of unremitting persistence were
+able to obtain about half as many cars as they needed.
+
+It was this difficulty which made Joe, after consultation with Wright,
+refuse a proposition of Clancy Brothers, with whom they already had a
+large delivery contract, calling for almost double the quantity of
+lumber which they had a right to purchase under the existing agreement,
+and at the same rate and same terms of delivery.
+
+"No use making contracts if we can't get cars," said Joe regretfully
+when he had read the Clancys' letter.
+
+"That's so," said Wright. "We'll explain it to them. I suppose if they
+want more lumber, and if we can ever get anything to ship it in, we can
+sell it to them." And he wrote them to that effect and subsequently
+regretted it, for cars began to come easier.
+
+And then there was the situation at the bank. The notes were coming due,
+and though there was no objection to renewing those which Crooks had
+endorsed, the bank intimated that the others should be reduced.
+
+"But why?" asked Joe. "You have collateral. The security is as good now
+as when they were given."
+
+"The personal liability is different," replied Hagel, manager of the
+Commercial Bank. He was a stout, pompous, side-whiskered man of middle
+age, inclined to a solemnity of speech which partially cloaked an innate
+stupidity, and he held his position mainly because he did as he was
+told, without question. "Your father's ability to pay was one thing;
+yours--you'll pardon me--is quite another."
+
+"In other words, you don't think I can run the business?" said Joe.
+
+Hagel raised a protesting hand. "It is not what _I_ think, Mr. Kent. My
+directors, in their wisdom, foresee a--er--a financial storm. We must
+shorten sail, Mr. Kent--hem!--yes--shorten sail. I regret the necessity,
+but----"
+
+"All right," Joe interrupted. "If you insist, of course I'll have to
+take up the notes when they mature. To do that I'll have to borrow
+money, and I don't feel inclined to leave my account where I can't get
+ordinary accommodation. I'll go over to the Farmers' National and see
+what McDowell will do for me."
+
+McDowell was manager of the latter institution, and the very antipodes
+of Hagel, who hated him. He was young, popular, brusque, and a
+thorough-paced sport after banking hours.
+
+"I trust you won't do that," said Hagel, for the Kent account was a very
+valuable one. "You have other accommodation from us, and we have had
+your account for a long time."
+
+"That's got nothing to do with it," said Joe, who was developing a most
+disconcerting habit of going straight to the point. "You people are
+trying to keep the cream and make me hustle to sell skim milk. If you
+force me to hunt accommodation elsewhere not another dollar of my money
+goes through your hands. You'll do what seems best to you, of course;
+but I want to know now where I am at."
+
+Hagel had lost some very good accounts which the Farmers' National had
+subsequently acquired, and his directors had made unpleasant remarks.
+Although he was merely carrying out their instructions in this instance,
+he knew director nature well enough to realize that he would be blamed
+if the account were withdrawn.
+
+"Better wait a few days, Mr. Kent," he said. "I'll put your views before
+my board, and I think it very likely the matter can be arranged--very
+likely indeed."
+
+"All right," said Joe; "but that's how it lies. I don't think I'm
+getting a square deal, and if I have to lift the notes I'll take the
+account with them."
+
+On top of this there came another trouble, and a serious one. Joe, one
+morning, had just rung for his stenographer when Wright burst in upon
+him in considerable agitation, brushing past that long-suffering young
+lady in the doorway.
+
+"What do you think of this?" he cried, waving a sheet of paper. "That
+infernal railway--" He swore venomously, and Joe's stenographer, with a
+glance at her employer, discreetly withdrew, for she was a young woman
+of experience.
+
+"What's the row?" Joe asked. "And you might shade your language a
+little. Not that I mind, but I don't want Miss Brown to quit her job."
+
+"A readjustment of freight rates!" cried Wright. "A readjustment! And
+look what they've done to lumber!"
+
+Joe grabbed the paper, glanced at it, and supplemented his manager's
+remarks with great heartiness. In a general and long-promised
+overhauling of freight rates that on lumber was boosted sky-high. But he
+did not at once grasp the full significance of it. He saw that the
+result would be to increase the price of lumber proportionately and
+restrict building to some extent in certain localities; but in the end
+the consumer would pay, as usual.
+
+"Rotten!" he commented. "The old rate was high enough. Looks like a case
+for the Transportation Commission. They ought to scale this down."
+
+"They'll get around to it in a couple of years," snorted Wright with
+bitter contempt. "Meanwhile where do we get off at? I tell you it just
+cuts the heart out of our business."
+
+"I don't see--" Joe began.
+
+"You don't?" Wright fairly shouted. "No, and I don't see it all
+myself--yet. But look what it does to our contract with the Clancys!"
+
+Now the contract with Clancy Brothers, mentioned before, was peculiar.
+They logged and manufactured lumber, but not nearly all for which they
+had sale. They operated a system of selling yards in twenty towns. By
+the terms of an agreement made by his father, which had more than a year
+to run, Kent was bound to supply them with lumber as required to a
+stated maximum amount at a stated price according to quality; and they,
+on their part, were bound to order lumber to a stated minimum quantity.
+
+But instead of the price being f.o.b. Falls City, as was usual, the
+Clancys had insisted on a delivery price at their central yard, thus
+striking an average and getting rid of trouble. Therefore the price of
+the lumber per thousand feet was based on a calculation in which the
+then existing freight rate was an important factor. Thus an unforeseen
+and substantial increase in the rate meant a corresponding loss to Kent,
+if the Clancys chose to hold him to the agreement. Joe looked at his
+manager in slowly, dawning comprehension.
+
+"Why--why--hang it, Wright," he said slowly, "it means a dead loss to us
+on every foot of boards we sell them!"
+
+"Just that," Wright agreed grimly. "And they'll boost their price with
+the rest of the retail men and make a double profit."
+
+"Surely they won't hold us up when we're losing money and they're making
+two kinds?" said Joe, from his utter inexperience.
+
+"Won't they?" snapped Wright. "They'll hold us up for every foot the
+contract calls for." He stopped suddenly. "And only a couple of weeks
+ago they wanted us to enter into a new contract for double the quantity
+at the same rates. Now I see it!"
+
+"They had advance information of the change!" gasped Joe.
+
+"Sure. After all, that car shortage was a good thing; otherwise we'd
+have closed with them. Now our only chance to get out even is to find a
+hole in the contract."
+
+Joe's hope that the Clancys would not hold him to a losing agreement
+went glimmering, but he didn't quite like Wright's suggestion. "We made
+this contract with our eyes open," he said. "At least my father did.
+Would it be square to back out now, even if we could?"
+
+"Square?" exclaimed Wright. "Look at the dirty game they tried on us!
+Anything's square with people like them. I'd rob their safe if I could.
+Didn't they try to get a new contract that would kill us? Did you ever
+see them?"
+
+"No," Joe admitted. "I heard they were good business men, that's all."
+
+"Business men!" Wright struggled for appropriate words, and finding none
+threw out his hands in a protesting gesture. "They're all that and then
+some. I wish I had half their business ability. They're a pair of
+cold-blooded, dirty-tongued, sewer-rat devils, with the knack of making
+money hand over fist. And you see how they do it! But they pay up to the
+day and the cent, and they never squeal when they're hit, I'll say that
+for them."
+
+"Then we won't squeal either," said Joe proudly. "Maybe, after all,
+they'll let us down easy."
+
+"Not them," said Wright, ungrammatically but positively.
+
+Not two hours afterward a wire was received from Clancy Brothers
+ordering a large consignment of dressed lumber which they wanted rushed.
+
+"What did I tell you?" said Wright sadly. "And the nerve of them to want
+it rushed. Rushed! I'll see them in blazes first. They'll take their
+turn, and that's last."
+
+This strategic delay was provocative of results. Some days afterward
+Joe's telephone rang.
+
+"Is that Misther Kent?" demanded a heavy voice at the other end of the
+wire. "It is? Well, this is Finn Clancy, talkin'--Finn Clancy of Clancy
+Brothers. I want to know how about that lumber we ordered. Is ut shipped
+yit?"
+
+"Not yet," Joe replied. "We don't----"
+
+"An' why the divil isn't ut?" interrupted Clancy. "Haven't ye got ut
+cut?"
+
+"Yes," Joe admitted, "but----"
+
+"No 'buts' about it," Clancy cut him short again. "Don't tell me ye
+can't get cars. I know better. That gag don't work no more. I'll have
+yeez people to understand that when we order lumber we want lumber an'
+not excuses. Th' contract calls for----"
+
+"I know quite well what it calls for," Joe interrupted in his turn. "If
+you think you've got a kick, come up to the office and make it." And he
+slammed the receiver back on the hook viciously.
+
+Half an hour afterward Wright ushered in the brothers Clancy. Finn
+Clancy fulfilled the promise of his telephone voice. He stood over six
+feet; he was broad, deep-chested, and red-bearded, with a pair of bright
+blue eyes hard as polished steel. John Clancy was small, dark, and
+wizened, and his mouth was a straight slit, tucked in at the corners.
+
+"This is Mr. Kent," said Wright.
+
+The brothers stared at Joe for a moment.
+
+"So ut was you I was talkin' to?" growled Finn Clancy belligerently.
+
+"It was," said Joe shortly, but, realizing the advisability of holding
+his temper, he added: "Sit down, gentlemen."
+
+They sat down. Finn heavily; John cautiously.
+
+"Now about the lumber," Joe began. "We've been delayed one way and
+another, but we'll ship it in a day or two."
+
+"You betther," Finn rumbled. "We got contracts to fill, an' we got a
+contract wid you. You want to remember that."
+
+"I do remember it," said Joe. "Also I remember that you tried to get us
+to sign a new one for double the amount, not so very long ago. I suppose
+it was a coincidence that the freight rate was boosted a few days
+afterward."
+
+They simply grinned at him. John Clancy chuckled dryly, as if it were
+the best joke in the world.
+
+"If we'd 'a' got that we'd 'a' made money," he said.
+
+"No doubt," Joe commented. "You're making enough as it is. We lose money
+on every order of yours that we fill."
+
+"That's your business," said Finn, and John's mouth tucked in a little
+more. He shot an understanding glance at his brother, but said nothing.
+
+"Quite true," said Joe. "And your profits will be doubled by the
+increased price of lumber. In view of that it occurred to us that you
+might be willing to amend the contract so as to let us out even."
+
+"That occurred to ye, did it?" said the big man. There was a sneer in
+his voice. "It didn't occur to us, did it, Jawn?"
+
+"It did not, Finn," said John positively.
+
+"Well, I mention it to you now," said Joe. "We don't want to lose money,
+but we'd be satisfied with an even break. Your profits will be big
+enough to allow us that. But it's up to you. If you choose to hold us up
+I suppose you can do it."
+
+"There's no holdin' up about it," said Finn. "You contract to deliver
+lumber at one price; we contract to buy it at that price. If it goes
+down we lose; if it goes up you lose. Anyways ye had yer eyes open when
+ye signed. That's how I look at it. Am I right, Jawn?"
+
+"Ye are," declared his brother. "If so be lumber had went down, wud we
+have came whinin to ye to let us off our contract? We wud not. When we
+lose we pay, an' say nawthin' about it. That's business."
+
+"All right," said Joe; "it may be. But if I stood to make as much money
+as you do I'd see that the other fellow didn't lose anything, that's
+all."
+
+"It's aisy to talk," sneered Finn; "an' all the time ye do be holdin' up
+our order, thinkin' to bluff us into amendin' the contract. Is that
+straight business, young felly?"
+
+Joe flushed, for there was just a little truth in the words.
+
+"That's not so," he replied. "Your order will go through, but I won't
+rush it for you. And if you'll allow me to give you a pointer, Clancy,
+it's to the effect that you're not in a position to make insinuations."
+
+"I don't insinuate, I talk straight," retorted Clancy. "I'm onto ye,
+young felly. Ye'll keep that contract to the letter, or I'll know why!"
+and he emphasized his ultimatum with an oath.
+
+"Mr. Clancy," said Joe icily, though his temper was at boiling point,
+"we'll dispense with profanity. I do all the necessary swearing here
+myself, understand. I won't have strong language or loud talk in my
+office."
+
+"Won't ye?" shouted Clancy. "Why, ye damned little----"
+
+Joe Kent's chair crashed back against the wall. Its occupant put his
+hand on the desk and vaulted it, alighting poised on his toes in front
+of the big man so suddenly that the latter paused in sheer amazement.
+
+"Go ahead and say what you were going to," said Joe with a queer little
+shake in his voice; "and then, you dirty mucker, I'll give you a lesson
+in manners!"
+
+Finn Clancy would have tackled a Dago armed with a knife or a
+construction hand holding a shovel without an instant's hesitation, for
+he was quite devoid of physical fear and a scrapper to his fingers'
+tips. But to have a quiet, brown-eyed young man suddenly leap a desk in
+an orderly business office and challenge him was so surprising that he
+paused.
+
+He took careful note of the steady, watchful eyes, the sweep of the lean
+jaw, the two brown fists swinging to just the slightest oscillation of
+the tensed forearms, and the poise of the body on the gripping feet; and
+he knew that if his tongue uttered the words on the tip of it those
+fists would smash into him with all the driving power of a very fine
+pair of shoulders behind them.
+
+Knowing it, his lips opened to speak the words; and Joe Kent, who had
+mastered the difficult art of starting a punch from wherever his hand
+happened to be, tautened his arm and shoulder muscles to steel.
+
+John Clancy intervened.
+
+"There's enough of this," he said. "Dry up, Finn. For why wud ye start
+rough-house wid the lad? An' you, Kent, 'tis wan punch ye'd have, an'
+then he'd kill ye." He pushed roughly between them and took his brother
+by the shoulder. "Come on out o' here, Finn, now. Lave him be, I tell
+ye!"
+
+"I won't," said Finn. "I'll tell him what I think iv him. An' if he
+makes a pass at me, Jawn, I'll break him acrost me knee!"
+
+"An' be pulled f'r it, wid yer name in the papers, an' a fine, an' a
+lawyer to pay, an' all," said his brother bitterly. "Have some sense.
+I'll not stand f'r it, an' I warn ye!"
+
+"Let him go, and stand out of the way!" cried Joe. "There'll be no law
+about it, Clancy, I promise you that, whichever way it goes." His blood
+was dancing in his veins and he laughed nastily in the surge of his
+anger. He fairly hungered to whirl two-handed into this big, beefy
+Irishman, and give or take a first-class licking.
+
+John Clancy put his open hand on his brother's breast and pushed him
+back. "Ye're a pair of fools," he announced dispassionately. "Can't ye
+talk over a business matter widout scrappin'? Be ashamed! It's little
+good ye've done yerself, Kent, this day. Finn, come on out of here!"
+
+"All right," growled Finn as he took a step toward the door, propelled
+by his brother's insistent hand. "Lave me be, Jawn. I'll get him another
+time. Mind ye, now," he cried to Kent, "we mane to have every foot of
+timber the contract calls for, an' no shenanigan about ut! An' ye may
+bless yer stars for Jawn, here, me bucko. Only for him I'd have lamed
+ye!"
+
+Joe did not reply to the threat. "When you came in I was willing to stay
+with the contract, even at a loss," he said. "Now, I tell you straight
+that if there's a way out of it you won't get another foot of boards
+from me."
+
+John Clancy grinned at him. "Hunt for holes in it, an' welcome," he said
+dryly. "If our lawyers is bum we want to know it, so we can change 'em.
+Nicholas K. Ryan drawed that agreement. I'm thinkin' ye couldn't break
+it wid dynymite."
+
+When they had gone Joe dug his copy of the agreement out of the safe and
+went to see Locke.
+
+"I want to know," he said, "if this agreement will hold water."
+
+Locke barely glanced at the document.
+
+"Ryan drew this, and your father signed it against my advice," he said.
+"Hold water? It would hold gas. What's the matter? Aren't they living up
+to it?"
+
+"Living up to it? I should say they are!" exclaimed Joe. "That's just
+the trouble. I want to know if there's a way out of this for me?" He
+explained the position, and the lawyer listened, frowning.
+
+"They're a sweet pair," he commented. "And so you want to dodge out of
+an agreement with them because you stand to lose money on it?"
+
+Joe reddened. Baldly put it amounted to just that, though in the heat of
+his anger he had lost sight of his former scruples.
+
+"They've rubbed you the wrong way," said Locke, "and no doubt they're
+too crooked to lie straight in a ditch, but that doesn't affect this
+contract. You can't break it."
+
+"If I haven't a chance I won't fight," said Joe. "I guess you're right
+about the ethics of the case, too. They made me so mad I forgot that
+side of it. Of course they knew the railway was going to jump the rate
+on us. Have you any idea why it was jumped."
+
+"I suppose they knew you'd have to stand for it," said Locke, grimly.
+"That's enough reason for any railroad."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Coincident with the rise in the freight rate the car shortage became a
+thing of the past. Orders from Clancy Brothers poured in and were filled
+as slowly as possible. Around them flourished a mass of acrid
+correspondence--complaints and threats from the consignees, tart
+rejoinders from Kent. In other quarters sales were slow and small, for
+the time was one of money stringency. Credit, once long and easy,
+contracted, and the men who held the purse-strings drew them tight.
+
+Hagel, of the Commercial Bank, communicated his directors' decision as
+to the maturing notes, with his usual verbose solemnity. Done into plain
+English it amounted to this: The directors insisted on having the notes
+reduced by half, and they didn't care a hoot for the Kent current
+account.
+
+Kent thereupon drew a check for his balance and took it to the Farmers'
+National, where he had already made tentative arrangements. New notes
+were signed, the Commercial paid off, and the securities held by them
+transferred to the Farmers'. That incident was closed.
+
+Joe found McDowell a vast improvement upon Hagel. Where the latter had
+backed and filled and referred to his directors, McDowell, to whom
+responsibility was as the breath of life, decided instantly. He was less
+bound by routine and tradition, more willing to take a chance, and in
+closer touch with the exigencies of modern business. But for all that he
+never lost sight of his bank's interests, and his impartial and cool
+advice was of inestimable benefit to Joe. Also he made it very plain
+that while his institution would meet any reasonable proposition more
+than half way, it would protect itself first, last, and all the time.
+But their policy was a more liberal one than the Commercial's.
+
+Thus Joe was able to pay the interest on the mortgages held by the
+Northern Loan Company. This was overdue, and the mortgagees had
+threatened legal proceedings. And he was able, also, to accompany his
+tender for the choice Wind River limits by a marked check, a necessary
+formality which had cost him some sleepless nights.
+
+Naturally neither Crooks nor Kent sat down quietly under the new freight
+rate. They protested warmly, and, protests failing, deputed Locke to
+handle the matter for them. Locke went straight to headquarters, as was
+his custom. Henry J. Beemer, the general manager of the Peninsular
+Railway, tilted back his chair and knocked the ashes from his cigar.
+
+"As a matter of fact, Locke," he said, "there never was a freight rate
+that pleased everybody."
+
+"Certainly not this one," Locke replied. "It pleases no one."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Beemer. "It's not such a bad rate. We have the
+usual number of complaints, but nothing more. Before promulgating it we
+made inquiries----"
+
+"From my clients?" Locke interrupted sceptically.
+
+"No, I'm afraid we overlooked them. But we have letters from several
+large lumber shippers and dealers. Like to read them?"
+
+Locke nodded. He perused the letters produced, with a sardonic smile.
+
+"Very pretty," he commented, handing them back. "You couldn't have
+worded them better yourself. They wouldn't deceive a child."
+
+"Do you insinuate that they are not genuine?" asked Beemer sharply,
+frowning.
+
+"They're not forgeries, but that lets them out," said Locke. "They're
+inspired, every one of them. The signatories would admit it under oath,
+too. Are you paying them rebates?"
+
+"Illegal," said Beemer, recovering his usual suavity.
+
+"Yes--but are you?" Locke retorted.
+
+"I'm not in the witness box," said Beemer.
+
+"You will be, one of these days," Locke predicted. "Then we'll thresh
+out the letters and the rebate question, if I have the cross-examining
+of you."
+
+Beemer smiled rather uneasily. "We don't seem to be getting ahead. What
+do you want us to do?"
+
+"Restore the old rate. My clients--or one of them--made contracts on the
+faith of it."
+
+"Shouldn't have done it," said Beemer. "Good heavens! You, as a lawyer,
+can't hold us responsible for that."
+
+"No, but you see how the new rate hits them."
+
+"We were losing money on the old one," said Beemer. "This has just gone
+into effect. We must see how it works. I won't promise anything, but
+later we may be able to reduce it."
+
+"That isn't satisfactory," Locke told him bluntly. "I shall advise my
+clients to file a complaint with the Transportation Commission."
+
+Beemer laughed. The commission was notoriously slow and over-loaded with
+work. Taken in its order of priority the complaint would not, in all
+probability, be disposed of inside a year.
+
+"Go ahead!" he said indifferently.
+
+"All right," said Locke. "Give me a list of your directors."
+
+"What do you want that for?"
+
+"I want to find out, if I can, how many or which of them will benefit by
+this increased rate on lumber."
+
+"Confound it, Locke," snapped Beemer, "that's another insinuation. It
+amounts to a charge of manipulation of rates."
+
+"Which is, of course, absurd," said Locke ironically. "Will you give me
+the names, or must I get them another way?"
+
+That night he and Crooks went carefully over the list of directors. They
+found several names whose owners were more or less connected with lumber
+interests, though just how they benefited by the new rate was not
+apparent, unless they received rebates in some form, as doubtless they
+did.
+
+"As to Carney it's plain enough," said Crooks. "His business is over on
+the O. & N. The rise won't touch him and will cut us out of his
+markets."
+
+"That's so," responded Locke. "Now, take Ackerman. I know he's mixed up
+in about everything, but I never heard that he had lumber interests."
+
+"He tried to get young Kent to turn his business into a stock company,
+and failing that to sell it," said Crooks.
+
+"The devil he did? Then we may assume his interest. But what is it?"
+
+Neither could answer the question. Mr. Ackerman's varied activities were
+not blazoned forth to the world. He was more prominent in finance than
+in commerce, and so far as they knew he was not identified with any
+lumber business.
+
+"But he must be," said Locke thoughtfully. "I'll see what I can find
+out. It's strange. I wonder----" He broke off abruptly and pulled out a
+drawer of his desk, burrowing among the papers. "Yes, here we are. Huh!"
+He laid two papers side by side and ran his eye down them. "By the Lord
+Harry, Crooks, Ackerman is a director of the Peninsular Railway, of the
+Commercial Bank, and of the Northern Loan Company!"
+
+"Is, hey?" Crooks did not see the connection. "He's in a lot of things
+besides."
+
+"Don't you get it?" Locke rapped out. "That bank was Joe Kent's till
+they tried to squeeze him and he changed. The loan company hold his
+mortgages and threatened foreclosure for an instalment of interest not
+much overdue. The railway makes a rate that loses money for him. And
+Ackerman, director in all three concerns, tries to get hold of his
+business. What do you think of that?"
+
+Crooks's thought compressed itself into one forcible word.
+
+"So there's a coon in the tree somewhere," Locke pursued. "Now, here's
+another thing: Clancy Brothers knew of the intended change before the
+new rate was promulgated. The contract which they tried to obtain would
+have been absolutely ruinous to Kent. The one they have is bad enough.
+Therefore we seem to be warranted in assuming some connection between
+Ackerman and the Clancys."
+
+The assumption seemed warranted but did not put them much further
+forward. Out of their speculations two salient points emerged: Some
+person or persons were hammering the lumber interests along the
+Peninsular Railway, and Kent's in particular; and Mr. Stanley Ackerman
+represented the people who wielded the hammer.
+
+Joe, when told of their deductions, was not nearly as surprised and
+indignant as he would have been a couple of months before. He was
+learning in a hard school, and hardening in the process. And his brief
+and pointed reference to Ackerman, the Clancys, _et hoc genus omne_,
+would have done credit to old Bill Crooks in his most vitriolic mood.
+
+"Showing the effect of a modern college education upon the vocabulary,"
+Locke commented dryly.
+
+Joe grinned mirthlessly. "They're all that and then some," he said.
+"I'll show them yet."
+
+Therefore it was unfortunate for Mr. Stanley Ackerman that he should
+have chosen this juncture for a second call upon the son of his highly
+respected deceased acquaintance, William Kent.
+
+Joe had just finished reading a letter from that eminent lawyer,
+Nicholas K. Ryan, setting forth the law in the matter of breach of
+contract, when Mr. Ackerman's accurately engraved card was handed to
+him. Followed Mr. Ackerman, perfectly dressed, bland, and smiling. His
+manner had lost nothing in warmth; indeed it was, if possible, more
+fatherly than ever. He beamed upon Joe, greatly to that young man's
+disgust.
+
+"Well, Mr. Ackerman," he said shortly, "what can I do for you?"
+
+"Why, my dear boy, that is exactly what I was about to ask _you_,"
+replied Mr. Ackerman. "I promised myself that the first time I was in
+Falls City I would drop in and ask if I could be of _any_ assistance in
+_any_ way."
+
+"Awfully kind of you," said Joe in a tone which should have given his
+visitor warning.
+
+"Not a bit of it, my boy. The signs point to hard times, and the advice
+of one who has--hem!--a certain amount of business experience may not
+come amiss. What can I do for you? Out with it! How is the business?"
+
+"The business," said Joe grimly, "is doing about as well as can be
+expected--under the circumstances."
+
+Involuntarily his eyes sought the letter lying open on his desk. So did
+Mr. Ackerman's, and as he recognized the huge, sprawling signature of
+that eminent attorney, Nicholas K. Ryan, a satisfied comprehension came
+into them.
+
+"Ah," he said, "you feel the prevailing depression already. I am sorry
+to say--hem!--it is only beginning. These things move in cycles. Buoyant
+trade, optimism, expansion; over-expansion, falling trade, pessimism. We
+are on the down grade now, and have not nearly reached the lowest point.
+It may be one year or two or three before there is a revival. Those
+whose businesses are sound will weather the storm; but those who are
+unprepared will perhaps founder."
+
+"Well, I'll weather it all right, if that's what you mean," said Joe.
+
+"I hope so--I sincerely hope so," said Mr. Ackerman in a tone which
+implied grave doubt. "By the way, since I was here I mentioned in a
+certain quarter--no matter where--the possibility of your being willing
+to stock your business or sell it, and I think a very good arrangement
+might be made--good from your standpoint, I mean. Let me tell you just
+what might be done."
+
+"I won't trouble you," said Joe. "I told you once I wasn't open to
+anything of the kind."
+
+"But this would be most advantageous," Ackerman persisted. "It would
+allow you to retain practical control of the business and give you more
+money than you are making at present."
+
+"Drop it!" rasped Joe. "You and your friends will get hold of the pieces
+of my business when you smash it and me, and not before."
+
+Mr. Ackerman was amazed, shocked, and pained. At least his face assumed
+an expression combining all three emotions.
+
+"My _dear_ boy----"
+
+"What's the use?" Joe interrupted hotly. "I know more about you than I
+did. You and your fellow directors of the railway raised the rate on
+lumber and tipped off the Clancys in advance. You nearly got me on that.
+You and your fellow directors of the bank tried to close me out when my
+security was ample. You and your fellow directors of the loan company
+wouldn't give me an ordinary extension of time for an interest payment.
+And if I went into any such arrangement as you seem prepared to suggest
+you'd cut my throat and throw me overboard when it suited you. And so,
+Mr. Ackerman, I think we may as well close this interview now."
+
+"I assure you----" Mr. Ackerman began earnestly.
+
+"Don't!" Joe interrupted curtly. "I wouldn't believe you."
+
+Mr. Stanley Ackerman rose and held out his hand, a smile, tolerant and
+forgiving, illuminating a countenance which, to tell the truth, was
+somewhat red.
+
+"I'd rather not, thanks," said Joe, looking at the hand. His tone was so
+thoroughly contemptuous that Mr. Ackerman's beautiful smile vanished.
+
+"All right, then, young man," he snapped. "This is the last offer you'll
+get from me. And in future you need expect no consideration from any
+institution with which I am identified. Go ahead and run your own little
+business, and see what happens."
+
+Joe brightened instantly.
+
+"That's better talk--and I believe you are telling the truth for once,"
+he said cheerfully. "That's precisely what I'm going to do."
+
+Mr. Ackerman's lips opened in a further remark; but thinking better of
+it he shut them again and left the office, wearing his dignity about him
+as a mantle. He brushed past Wright in the hall, and the latter whistled
+his astonishment, for the highly respectable and usually unperturbed
+twin brother of Capital was swearing through his teeth in a way that
+would have increased the reputation of any drunken pirate who ever
+infested the Florida Keys.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The year drew into September, time of goldenrod, browning grasses,
+crisp, clear mornings and hazy, dreamy days. The shanty lads began to
+straggle back to town from little backwoods farms where they had spent
+the summer loafing or increasing the size of the clearings, from mills,
+from out-of-the-way holes and corners. They haunted the lumber
+companies' offices looking for jobs. There things began to hum with the
+bustle of preparation and owners held long consultations with walking
+bosses and laid plans for the winter's campaign.
+
+Kent's tender for the choice Wind River limits was accepted, somewhat to
+his surprise and to Crooks's profane amazement. The latter, through the
+good offices of a middleman working for his rake-off, secured the limits
+on Rat Lake. Remained the question of how the logs should be cut, and
+when.
+
+Joe, after taking counsel with Crooks, Wright, and Locke, decided on his
+course. That winter he would make a supreme effort to cut every stick he
+could, and sell them in the drive, retaining only enough logs to run his
+mill on half time or a little better. This seemed the only thing to do.
+Locke had been unable to push his complaint anent the freight rate to a
+hearing before the commission.
+
+Kent's liabilities were piling up and maturing; the general financial
+stringency was increasing, as predicted by Ackerman; his timber sales,
+taking into consideration the unprofitable contract with the Clancys,
+showed a very narrow margin; and the consensus of advice he received was
+to market his raw product while he could, reduce his liabilities as much
+as possible, and then sit tight and hope for better luck and better
+times.
+
+For once fortune seemed to play into his hand, for while he was
+considering the question of opening negotiations for the disposal of the
+surplus logs the following spring he received a letter from Wismer &
+Holden, who were very large millmen and did little logging, either
+jobbing out such limits as they bought or buying their logs from loggers
+who had no mills. The letter stated that they wished to obtain from
+twenty million feet upward, in the log, deliverable at their booms not
+later than July 1st of the following year. They offered a good price,
+and were prepared to pay cash on delivery. And they wished to know if
+Kent could supply them with the above quantity of logs, or, if not, what
+part of it.
+
+This was too good a proposition to be neglected, and Joe immediately
+took train and called on Wismer & Holden. In half an hour the
+preliminaries were settled.
+
+"You understand," said Wismer, "that we must have these logs by July
+1st. A later date won't do."
+
+"I can get them down by then, of course," said Joe.
+
+"Then we might as well close the deal now," said Wismer, and called his
+stenographer. He dictated an agreement from a form which he took from
+his desk. In this agreement was a clause providing a penalty for
+non-delivery by the date named. Joe was not versed in legal terminology,
+but it read pretty stiff and he took objection to it.
+
+"That's our ordinary form of delivery contract," said Wismer. "We have
+to protect ourselves somehow. We give you ample margin for delivery, you
+see, but we've got to have some guarantee that you'll make good, because
+we make other contracts in the expectation of getting the logs by a
+certain date. If we didn't get them we'd be up against it."
+
+That seemed reasonable enough, and Joe signed the instrument. But when a
+few days afterward he showed it to Locke, the lawyer pounced on that
+clause like a hawk, switched over to the last page, looked at Joe's
+signature duly witnessed, and groaned.
+
+"Boy, what on earth did you sign that for? Did they chloroform you?"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" asked Joe.
+
+"Matter with it?" snorted Locke. "Why, it's a man-trap, nothing short of
+it. Can't you read, or didn't you read? If you didn't know what you were
+signing there's a glimmer of hope."
+
+"I read the thing," Joe admitted.
+
+"And yet you signed it! Why, you young come on, if you fail to deliver
+by July 1st they may refuse to accept any logs whatever; and, moreover,
+you become their debtor and bind yourself to pay an amount which they
+say is ascertained damages for non-performance. Do you get that with any
+degree of clarity?"
+
+"Oh, that's all right, I guess," said Joe, and repeated Wismer's
+explanation. "I'm sure to have the logs down early in June, so it
+doesn't matter."
+
+"Any clause in a contract matters," said Locke. "You're gambling on a
+date. The amount they specify as damages is an arbitrary one, and may be
+twice as great as the loss to them. This is another of Nick Ryan's
+deadfalls--I recognize the turn of the phrases--and he's got the little
+joker tucked inside, as usual. After this don't you sign a blame thing
+without showing it to me."
+
+Locke's words would have caused Joe some uneasiness but for the fact
+that he was sure of making delivery. Having arranged a market for his
+logs, or, rather, one having arranged itself for him, the next thing was
+to provide the logs themselves. He and Wright held council with McKenna,
+Tobin, Deever, and MacNutt, the former being Kent's walking boss and the
+last three his foremen.
+
+The winter's work was divided in this way: Deever and Tobin were to
+finish cutting the limits on the Missabini; MacNutt was to take the Wind
+River limit, just acquired; Dennis McKenna, the walking boss, had a
+general oversight of the camps, but would divide his time between
+Tobin's and Deever's, after locating the camp at Wind River, which limit
+he had cruised before the purchase.
+
+Immediately on reaching this decision, the foremen got together the
+nucleus of crews.
+
+"Why don't you go up to the Wind with McKenna and take a look at
+things?" said Crooks.
+
+Joe welcomed the suggestion with enthusiasm. He had been sticking pretty
+closely to the office, and the prospect of a couple of weeks in the open
+air was attractive.
+
+Three days later saw him trudging beside McKenna and MacNutt, while
+behind them a wagon laden with tents, blankets, food, and tools bumped
+and jolted.
+
+They left roads behind, and plunged into unmarked, uncharted country
+where the wheels sank half-way to the hubs in damp, green moss, crashed
+through fern to the horses' bellies, or skidded perilously on rocky
+hillsides. Ahead, McKenna piloted his crew, a light axe in his hand,
+gashing the trees with blazes at frequent intervals. He blazed them both
+back and front, until the road was plainly marked so that going and
+coming the way might be seen. To Joe the instinct of the old woodsman
+was marvellous. He made no mistakes, never hesitated, never cast back.
+But always he followed the lines of the least natural resistance, and
+somehow these lines, which he apparently carried in his head, became a
+fairly straight route to an objective point.
+
+There were obstacles easier to surmount than to avoid--logs to be cut
+and thrown aside, pole bridges to be built, bits of corduroy to be laid
+in shaky places; merely temporary things, these, for the flying column.
+Later others would make a road of it, but at present anything that would
+carry team and wagon served. So the crew slashed out a way with
+double-bitted or two-faced axes--"Methodist axes," as they were called
+in an unwarranted reflection upon that excellent denomination--throwing
+light, frail bridges together with wonderful celerity, twisting fallen
+timber out of the way with peavey-hook and cant-dog, and doing the work
+effortlessly and easily, for they were one and all experts with the
+tools of their trade, and such work was child's play to them.
+
+In due course they arrived at the site chosen by McKenna when he had
+cruised the limit. It was a natural opening, ringed about with towering,
+feathery-headed pines. At one end it sloped down to alder and willow
+through which a little stream slid gently between brown roots and mossy
+banks. This meant water supply. Ruffed grouse roared up from under Joe's
+feet as he parted the bushes, and when he rose to his knees, having
+drunk his fill lying flat on the ground, he saw a big, brown swamp hare,
+already graying about the ears, watching him not twenty feet away. Also,
+in a bare and muddy place, he saw the pointed tracks of deer, and
+dog-like prints which were those of a stray wolf. However, he had not
+come to hunt.
+
+Tents came out of the wagon and were rammed up and made fast in short
+order. The cook dug a shallow trench and built his fireplace, drove
+forked stakes, laid a stout, green pole between them, slung his
+pot-hooks on it and below them his pots, and so was ready to minister to
+the needs of the inner man. With tape-line and pegs McKenna laid out the
+ground plans of bunk-house, eating-camp, caboose, foreman's quarters,
+and stables. At a safe distance he located the dynamite storehouse.
+
+Already the crashing fall of trees announced that the crew was getting
+out timbers for the buildings, and Joe watched the work of axes and saws
+with a species of fascination. No sooner did a tree strike the ground
+than men were on it, measuring, trimming, cutting it to length. When a
+square timber was required, one man cut notches three feet apart down
+the sides of a prostrate trunk and split off the slabs. Another, a lean,
+wasp-waisted tiemaker, stripped to underclothes and moccasins, mounted
+one end with a huge, razor-edged broad-axe which was the pride of his
+heart. Every stroke fell to a hair. He hewed a straight line by judgment
+of eye alone, and the result was a stick of square or half-square
+timber, absolutely straight, and almost as smooth as if planed.
+
+As fast as the logs were ready the teamster grappled them with hook and
+chain, and the big horses yanked them out into position. Another wagon
+and more men arrived. Buildings grew as if by magic. The wall-logs were
+mortised and skidded up into place; the whole was roofed in; the chinks
+were stuffed with moss and plastered with wet clay; bunks in tiers were
+built around the walls; tables and benches knocked together in no time;
+and the Wind River camp was finished and ready for occupation.
+
+While these preparations were going forward, Joe, McKenna, and MacNutt
+prowled the woods at such times as the last two had to spare from
+construction work. The walking boss and the foreman sized up the
+situation with the sure rapidity of experts. They knew just how many
+feet of timber a given area held, how long it should take so many men to
+cut it, and in how many loads, given good sleigh-roads, it should be
+hauled out to the banking grounds at the river.
+
+"It'll depend a lot on the season, of course," said McKenna. "If she's a
+fair winter--a powder of snow and good frost for a bottom and then snow
+and hard weather with odd flurries to make good slippin'--we can get out
+all we cut. But if she freezes hard and dry, and the snow's late and
+scanty or hits us all in a bunch when it comes, it will put us back. Or
+if mild weather gets here early and the roads break it will be bad."
+
+As the walking boss spoke he and Joe were standing at the top of a
+height looking down a vista of brown tree-trunks which sloped gently
+away to a dense cedar swamp. Suddenly Joe's eye caught a moving figure
+and he pointed it out to McKenna.
+
+"It can't be one of our men," said the latter; "we'd better see who it
+is."
+
+As the stranger came into plain view, heading straight for them, McKenna
+gave a grunt of recognition and displeasure.
+
+"That's Shan McCane!"
+
+"Never heard of him," said Joe carelessly.
+
+"You don't miss much," the walking boss commented. "'Rough Shan,' they
+call him. The name fits."
+
+Mr. McCane was no beauty. He was big, and looked fleshy, but was not. A
+deceptive slouchiness of carriage covered the quickness of a cat when
+necessary. His cheeks and chin bristled with a beard of the texture and
+colour of a worn-out blacking brush; his nose had a cant to the
+northeast, and his left eye was marred by a sinister cast. Add to these
+a chronic, ferocious scowl and subtract two front teeth, and you have
+the portrait of Rough Shan McCane, as Joe saw him. For attire he wore a
+greasy flannel shirt, open in front so that his great, mossy chest was
+bare to the winds, short trousers held in place by a frayed leather
+strap, and a pair of fourteen-inch larrigans. He and McKenna greeted
+each other without enthusiasm.
+
+"Cruisin'?" asked the walking boss.
+
+"Nope," replied McCane. "I got a camp over here a ways. I'm cuttin'
+Clancys' limit."
+
+"Clancys'!" said Joe in surprise, for Clancy Brothers had purchased the
+next limit in the name of a third party a couple of years before and
+their interest did not appear. "Do they own timber here?"
+
+"Their limit butts on your east line," McCane told him.
+
+"How do you get your logs out?" asked McKenna.
+
+"We'll haul down to Lebret Creek and drive that to the Wind."
+
+McKenna nodded. The Kent logs would be driven down Wind River. Lebret
+Creek lay east of it. It was a small stream, but fast and good driving.
+
+"Well, I must be gettin' back," said McCane. "Your timber runs better
+than ours. So long!"
+
+He nodded and slouched off. McKenna looked after him and shook his head.
+
+"I'd rather have any one else jobbin' Clancys' limit," he observed.
+"McCane keeps a bad camp an' feeds his crew on whiskey. He has a wild
+bunch of Callahans, Red McDougals, and Charbonneaus workin' for him
+always. No other man could hold 'em down."
+
+"How does he get his work done with whiskey in camp?" Joe asked.
+
+"He can make a man work, drunk or sober--or else he half kills him. The
+worst is that with a booze-camp handy our boys will get it once in
+awhile. Still, MacNutt can hold 'em down. McCane laid him out a couple
+of years ago with a peavey, and he hates him. He won't stand any
+nonsense. A good man is Mac!"
+
+MacNutt, the foreman of the Wind River crew, was a lean, sinewy logger
+who had spent twenty years in the camps. He owned a poisonous tongue and
+a deadly temper when aroused; but he had also a cool head, and put his
+employer's interests before all else. He heard the news in silence.
+
+"Of course we can't stand for booze in the camp," said Joe. "If any man
+gets drunk on whiskey from McCane's camp or elsewhere, fire him at
+once." He thought he was putting the seal of authority on a very severe
+measure.
+
+MacNutt smiled sourly. "I won't fire a good man the first time--I'll
+just knock the daylights out of him," he said. "As for McCane, I look
+for trouble with him." Suddenly he swore with venom. "I'll split his
+head with an axe if he crowds me again!"
+
+"Oh, come--" Joe began.
+
+"Sounds like talk, I know," MacNutt interrupted. "But he nigh brained me
+with a peavey once, when I had only my bare hands. It's coming to him,
+Mr. Kent. I'll take nothing from him nor his crew."
+
+Joe, on his way back to town the following day, thought of MacNutt's
+hard eyes and set mouth, and felt assured that he would meet any trouble
+half-way. His own disposition being rather combative on occasion, he
+endorsed his foreman's attitude irrespective of the diplomacy of it.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+When he returned from Wind River, Kent determined, after clearing off
+what work had accumulated in his absence, to pay a visit to Edith
+Garwood. He sent no advance notice of his coming, and her surprise at
+seeing him was considerably more apparent than any joy she might have
+felt; for she was carrying on an interesting affair with a young
+gentleman who really did not know the extent of resources which had been
+in his family in the form of real estate for something over a century.
+It was most annoying that Joe Kent should turn up just then.
+
+"I'm just going out," she said. "Why didn't you tell me you were
+coming?"
+
+"No particular reason," said Joe, feeling the coolness of his reception.
+"Does it matter?"
+
+"Of course it matters. I have made engagements which I can't very well
+break, even for you. If you had told me----"
+
+"Don't worry," said Joe. "I'll take what's left. You're going out, and I
+shan't keep you. May I call to-night?"
+
+That evening happened to be blank. She gave him the desired permission,
+and feeling that she had perhaps shown her irritation too plainly, asked
+him to accompany her.
+
+"It's an afternoon affair," she explained, "and of course you won't care
+to come in; but you may see me that far if you like, and the car will
+set you down anywhere."
+
+As they entered the waiting car a gentleman on the other side of the
+street raised his hat. Miss Garwood bowed, and Joe acknowledged the
+salute mechanically. It was only when the car shot by the pedestrian
+that he recognized him as Mr. Stanley Ackerman.
+
+"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Do you know that fellow?"
+
+"Really, Joe," she replied, "I wish you wouldn't speak of my father's
+friends in that way." Her annoyance was genuine, but his words were not
+the cause of it. She disliked Ackerman and distrusted him. Also he knew
+the young man with the real estate pedigree.
+
+"I can't congratulate your father on that particular friend," Kent
+observed bluntly, and became thoughtful.
+
+Mr. Ackerman looked after the car and became thoughtful also. Shortly
+afterward he entered Hugh Garwood's office.
+
+The president of the O. & N. would have been spare and shapely if he had
+taken ordinary exercise; but being far too busy a man to spend any time
+on the trifling matter of physical well-being his figure had run to
+seed. Only his head was lean and alertly poised, by virtue of the keen,
+ever-working brain within. The face was narrow, hard, and determined;
+and the mouth, set awry beneath the close-clipped gray moustache, was
+ruthless and grim. It was, in fact, a fairly good indication of his
+character and methods. He was never known to forego an advantage of any
+kind, and he was accustomed to bludgeon opponents into submission
+without being particular where he cut his clubs.
+
+"Well, Ackerman," he said, "what's the news?"
+
+Mr. Ackerman had no news. It was a fine day, though cool. Beautiful
+weather. Made a man want to be outdoors.
+
+Garwood grunted. He was not interested in the weather, save as it
+affected business. Snow blockades and wash-outs and natural phenomena
+producing them received his attention. Apart from such things he
+scarcely knew whether a day was fine or not.
+
+"All very well for people who have time to burn," he commented. "I
+haven't."
+
+"Young people enjoy it," said Mr. Ackerman, getting his opening. "I saw
+your daughter go by in a car as I came downtown. Lovely girl that. I
+thought she looked remarkably well and happy."
+
+"She ought to be happy," said her father grimly. "She spends enough
+money."
+
+"You can afford it. It won't be long till some one else is paying her
+bills. Plenty of young men would think it a privilege."
+
+Garwood, from his knowledge of Mr. Ackerman's indirect methods of
+approach, suddenly regarded him with attention.
+
+"What are you driving at, anyway, Ackerman?" he asked. "_You_ don't want
+to marry her, do you?"
+
+Mr. Ackerman disclaimed any such desire with haste and evident
+sincerity. "There was a very good-looking young fellow with her this
+afternoon," he observed.
+
+"Trust her for that," growled Garwood. "Who was it? Young Statten?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Ackerman slowly, enjoying the sensation in advance, "his
+name is Kent, Joseph Kent of Falls City."
+
+"What?" cried Garwood, and straightened in his chair as if he had
+received a shock, as indeed he had.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Ackerman. "You remember she was in Falls City for some
+weeks this summer. I heard somewhere--you know how these things get
+about--that she and Kent were--well, in fact, I heard that they were
+together a great deal."
+
+Garwood rapped out a man's size oath. "Why didn't you tell me this
+before?"
+
+"Knowing Miss Edith's penchant for innocent summer flirtations I
+attached no importance to it," smiled Mr. Ackerman.
+
+Garwood sat frowning. "You may be right. That girl would flirt with a
+man's shadow. However, I'll put a stop to this at once. Now see here,
+Ackerman, you've bungled the Kent matter so far."
+
+"I have not," denied Mr. Ackerman indignantly. "He simply would not
+sell. That's not my fault."
+
+Garwood dismissed the protest with an impatient gesture. "The fact
+remains that I haven't got what I'm after. Crooks's business and Kent's
+are all that prevent us from controlling the lumber market on the O. &
+N. and the Peninsular. Crooks is pretty strong, but this winter must
+break Kent, and after that we'll get Crooks. We absolutely must have the
+water powers which Kent owns. He has a fortune in them, if he only knew
+it and had money enough to develop them, and we also need his mills. We
+must have these things, and there must be no mistake about it."
+
+"If he doesn't deliver the logs he has contracted to deliver----"
+Ackerman began, but Garwood cut him short.
+
+"It must be made impossible for him to deliver them. If he makes good it
+gives him a new lease of life and delays our plans; but if he doesn't
+cut the logs he can't deliver them, whether his drive is hung up or
+not."
+
+"It was against my advice that his tender for the Wind River limits went
+through."
+
+"I know. But he could ill afford to put up the cash for them. His credit
+is becoming badly strained. A small cut or non-delivery will be fatal to
+him."
+
+"But how can we prevent his cutting?"
+
+"Really, Ackerman, you are dense to-day," said Garwood. "Clancy Brothers
+have timber near Wind River. We can't touch the other camps, so far as I
+can see at present, but if you represent matters properly to the Clancys
+I think they will look after that one."
+
+When Garwood went home that evening he called his daughter into his
+private room and went straight to the point.
+
+"Now, Edith," said he, "I want to know what there is between you and
+young Kent."
+
+She flushed angrily, immediately fixing the responsibility for the leak
+on Ackerman. "Who told you there was anything between us?"
+
+"Never mind. Is it a fact?"
+
+"Is what a fact?"
+
+"Don't beat about the bush with me. How far has this flirtation of yours
+gone?"
+
+"Not very far," she answered calmly. "Mr. Kent has merely asked me to
+marry him."
+
+"What!" cried Garwood, "you don't mean to tell me you're engaged?"
+
+"I suppose we are--in a way."
+
+"This must stop," said Garwood. "I thought you had more sense. You can't
+marry him. He is a nobody; he is on the verge of bankruptcy; he is
+merely after my money."
+
+She cast a sidewise glance at a long mirror and laughed at the lovely
+reflection. "You are not complimentary, papa. Don't you think a young
+man might fall in love with me for myself?"
+
+"I am not talking of love, but of marriage," said Garwood cynically. "I
+won't have it, I tell you. You must drop Kent now."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I say so," said her father, his mouth setting firmly. "I won't
+mince matters with you, Edith. Inside a year Kent will be looking for a
+clerk's job. You're not cut out for a poor man's wife."
+
+"You mean that if I married him you would give me nothing?"
+
+"You grasp my meaning exactly. Not a cent during my life nor after my
+death."
+
+Edith Garwood sighed as plaintively as she could; but it was in fact a
+sigh of relief. It was put up to her so squarely that she had no choice,
+as she looked at it. She was already tired of Kent, anxious for an
+excuse to break with him, and she had secretly dreaded the affair coming
+to her father's knowledge. Now the worst was over. And she saw an
+opportunity of avoiding a scene with Joe, which she had dreaded also.
+
+"Of course I haven't been brought up to marry a poor man," she said. "We
+would both be miserable, if it came to that. So it would be a mistake,
+wouldn't it?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," responded Garwood, who, having carried his point much
+more easily than he expected, found a certain amusement in her mental
+processes, as one is entertained by the antics of a kitten.
+
+"Then I suppose I shall have to give him up," she continued, with
+another beautifully plaintive sigh. "He is to call to-night. Will you
+tell him? Or shall I write him a note?"
+
+"No doubt you know the correct procedure," said Garwood. "Write your
+note and give it to me. Make it firm and definite."
+
+She nodded agreement. "And now, papa, don't you think I am a very
+dutiful, self-sacrificing daughter?"
+
+Garwood reached for his check-book with a smile of grim comprehension.
+"How much does it cost me this time?" he asked.
+
+When Joe called that evening he was shown into Hugh Garwood's study. The
+railway man, seated at his desk, eyed him keenly. Kent found the
+scrutiny unfriendly, and stiffened.
+
+"I called to see Miss Garwood," said he. "My name is Kent."
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Kent," said Garwood. "My daughter has given me this note
+for you. Will you please read it."
+
+Joe read. It was brief and to the point, and wound up with perfunctory
+regrets. There was no possibility of misunderstanding it. He folded the
+missive.
+
+"I presume you know the contents of this letter, Mr. Garwood?"
+
+"I am aware of them, yes."
+
+"Miss Garwood says that you object to her engagement to me. Will you
+kindly tell me why?"
+
+"With pleasure. You are not in a position to marry, and you entrapped my
+daughter into a clandestine engagement, which was not a manly thing to
+do. In fact, to put it very plainly, you are trying to marry money."
+
+"To put it just as plainly," said Joe, flushing, "I don't care about
+your money at all. I am in a position to marry. The secret engagement I
+own up to and take the blame for. I shouldn't have consented to it."
+
+"Consented?" said Garwood sharply. "Then it was my daughter who
+suggested that?"
+
+"Not at all," said Joe, lying manfully as he felt bound to do after the
+slip. "It was my fault entirely."
+
+Garwood smiled cynically. "You needn't shoulder all the blame. I know
+her better than you do." He was rather surprised at the equanimity with
+which Kent accepted his dismissal. He had looked for a stormy interview
+with a disappointed, unreasonable youth who would protest and indulge in
+heroics. He felt quite kindly toward this young man, whose business,
+nevertheless, he intended to smash. Inwardly he made a note to offer him
+some sort of a job when that was accomplished. "I take back what I said
+a moment ago. But you must understand that there can be nothing between
+you and my daughter."
+
+"I think I understand that very well," said Joe. "Glad to have made your
+acquaintance, Mr. Garwood. By the way, please tell Mr. Ackerman I
+recognized him to-day. Good night."
+
+Edith Garwood, peeping from behind a drawn blind, expected to see an
+utterly crushed being slink from the house. What she saw was an erect
+young man who paused on the steps to light a cigar, cocked it up at a
+jaunty angle, and went down the street head up and shoulders back.
+
+In fact, Joe Kent was shaking hands with himself. He had known for some
+time that his feeling for Edith Garwood fell far short of love; but as
+he looked at it, he could not tell her so. So that his dismissal,
+instead of plunging him into the depths of gloom, boosted his spirits
+sky-high.
+
+"Thank the Lord!" he exclaimed fervently as he swung down the street.
+"Joe, my son, let this be a lesson to you. Cut out the girl proposition
+and stick to business." He became thoughtful. "So old Ackerman's a
+friend of Garwood's. And Garwood tells me I'm not in a position to
+marry. I wonder how he knows so much about it? I wonder----" He did not
+complete the sentence, but Garwood's words stuck in his recollection.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+When Mr. Ackerman, following the hint received from Garwood, called at
+the office of Clancy Brothers, his reception was nothing short of
+frosty.
+
+John Clancy was alone, and he regarded his visitor from beneath a
+lowering brow.
+
+"Now, here's what I want to know about," said he. "How does it come that
+Kent gets them limits at Wind River? We tendered for them ourselves."
+
+"Likely his tender was higher," said Mr. Ackerman with assumed
+carelessness.
+
+"An' what's that got to do wid it?" demanded Clancy, who appeared to
+find this explanation inadequate. "Don't we give up strong to th'
+campaign fund? Neither young Kent nor his father ever gave a cent to it,
+and their politics is the other way. It's a raw deal we got, an' ye can
+say that we'll remember it. If them limits had gone to one of our own
+people we'd have said nawthin', for we could have fixed it wid him or
+he'd a had to fix it wid us. But th' way it is we're sore, an' we make
+no bones about sayin' so. Where's his pull, that's what we want to know?
+An' if it's come to this, that a young felly whose politics is agin ye
+an' who don't give up to th' fund can buy limits ahead of us, why, then,
+we're through an' be damned to ye! An' there's others who thinks the
+same way."
+
+This unusually long and evidently heartfelt speech of Clancy's indicated
+a dissatisfaction which Mr. Ackerman, who held confidential relations
+with certain members of a thoroughly rotten and graft-ridden
+administration, could not afford to ignore.
+
+"Oh, that's nonsense, Clancy," said Ackerman. "There was a reason why
+Kent got the limits and we'll see that you get something else."
+
+"We want what we go after, an' we don't have to take what's handed to
+us," retorted Clancy unappeased. "See now, Ackerman, we know a thing or
+two. Here's Kent been makin' up to ould Garwood's girl. Garwood works
+his pull, an' th' limits goes to Kent. I have it from the inside that
+Garwood got them for him. Now, I'm not settin' our pull agin
+Garwood's--not by no manes--but we will not be used by you to
+double-cross him. We want no trouble wid Garwood."
+
+"What do you mean?" Ackerman queried.
+
+"I mane this: You tip us off to make a new contract wid Kent bekase the
+railway will raise the rates on boards. Ye don't do that for love of us,
+nor yet for a rake-off, for ye asked for none. So ye do it to hit Kent.
+Then he tenders for timber limits, an' Garwood, bekase the young man is
+keepin' company wid his daughter, sees he gets them. You an' Garwood do
+be thick together, an' it's strange you're knockin' his
+son-in-law-to-be. Me an' Finn will have no more to do wid it."
+
+Mr. Ackerman chuckled at Clancy's very natural mistake. "If you think
+Garwood is a friend of Kent's you're wrong."
+
+"Show me," said Clancy.
+
+"There's nothing now between Garwood's daughter and Kent," responded
+Ackerman. "If Garwood had cared to use his influence for him the
+Peninsular would not have raised the rate on lumber. That's obvious
+enough, I should think."
+
+"I'm talkin' about them limits," said Clancy obstinately.
+
+"Well, admitting that Garwood is responsible for that, he had his
+reasons other than the one you mentioned. Kent has sunk a lot of money
+in that timber. He may not get it out again."
+
+"Ye mane that the limits was onloaded onto him to tie up his cash
+resources?" said Clancy, comprehending.
+
+"I didn't say so," said Mr. Ackerman, smiling sweetly, "but his business
+is involved already, and if anything unforeseen should occur he might
+smash."
+
+"An' somebody might buy him in," Clancy commented with an appreciative
+grin. "I wish ye luck, but what do we get in place of our tender that
+was turned down?"
+
+"Let me know what you want and I'll do my best for you," Ackerman
+promised. "Now, I understand you have some timber near Kent's Wind River
+limits?"
+
+"Buttin' onto 'em at one line," Clancy replied. "That's why we
+tendered--to round out our holdin'."
+
+"Are you cutting it this winter?"
+
+"We are."
+
+"Yourselves?"
+
+"We jobbed it out."
+
+"That's too bad," said Mr. Ackerman in disappointment. "I suppose the
+jobber is a good man?"
+
+"A good man!" echoed John Clancy. "Is Rough Shan McCane a good man? If
+there's a worse one anywheres I never seen him."
+
+"Then why did you give him the stuff to cut?"
+
+"Bekase he'll put in the logs. He can drive a crew, drunk or sober."
+
+"I thought liquor wasn't allowed in the camps?"
+
+"No more it is--in most."
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Ackerman casually, "that if whiskey got into
+Kent's camp his work would suffer?"
+
+John Clancy eyed him keenly. "Two an' two makes four," he said
+oracularly. "What are ye drivin' at? Put it in plain words."
+
+Mr. Ackerman put it as plainly as his bias in favour of indirect speech
+would permit. Clancy considered with pursed mouth.
+
+"These things works both ways," he said. "A loggin' war, wanst started
+bechune two camps, means hell an' docthers' bills to pay, to say
+nawthin' of lost time. What would we get out of it?"
+
+Mr. Ackerman told him, prudently sinking his voice to little more than a
+whisper, and Clancy's eyes glistened.
+
+"Them's good contracts," he commented. "I'll speak to Finn. He has it in
+for Kent."
+
+This partial assurance seemed to satisfy Mr. Ackerman. "Is Kent still
+delivering lumber under your contract?" he asked.
+
+"He is--as slow as he can. Ryan says we can't have the law on him for
+breach of contract yet. I had him write a letter makin' a bluff, an'
+Kent's lawyer wrote back callin' it. So there ye are."
+
+"Well, I suppose it can't be helped," said Mr. Ackerman regretfully. But
+on the whole he was very well satisfied with the position of affairs,
+and left Clancy's office wearing the peculiarly bland, guileless smile
+which was his whenever he had succeeded in arranging a particularly
+unpleasant programme for some one else. The smile, however, lost
+something of its quality when, just outside the street door, he ran into
+Locke.
+
+The lawyer glanced from him to Clancy Brothers' window lettering and
+back again, and smiled. His expression somehow reminded Mr. Ackerman of
+a dog that has found an exceedingly choice bone.
+
+"Hallo, Ackerman!" said he. "What are you framing up now?"
+
+"I don't think I understand you," said Mr. Ackerman with dignity.
+
+"Well, here's something I wanted to ask you," Locke went on. "Is it a
+fact that the O. & N.--otherwise Garwood--has secured control of the
+Peninsular?"
+
+The question was so entirely unexpected that Mr. Ackerman was almost
+caught off his guard, but he said:
+
+"Control of the Peninsular? You must be joking."
+
+"It is not a fact, then?" asked Locke.
+
+"He may have bought some shares. But control--oh, no! that would be most
+unlikely. Our shares are all too strongly held."
+
+"Not an impossibility, however?" Locke persisted.
+
+"Humanly speaking, anything is possible," smiled Mr. Ackerman, getting
+his second wind. "Rumours are most unreliable things."
+
+"Yes," Locke assented. "When did you and Garwood go into the lumber
+business?"
+
+Once more Mr. Ackerman was taken flat aback. Figuratively speaking, he
+even gathered sternway. He simply stared at Locke for a moment.
+
+"The--lumber--business?" he exclaimed, recovering power of speech. "My
+dear sir, I am not in the lumber business, save for a few shares which I
+own here and there."
+
+"No?" Locke smiled unpleasant, open disbelief. "How about Garwood?"
+
+"Why don't you ask him?" said Mr. Ackerman with unnecessary tartness.
+
+"I will, one of these days," said Locke. "By the way, I'm going to
+subpoena both of you in my application to the commission."
+
+"That will come on next year, I believe," said Mr. Ackerman with
+something very like a sneer.
+
+"Probably next month," Locke retorted. "Good morning."
+
+Locke's words were by no means random shots. Once convinced that
+Ackerman represented some person or persons inimical to Kent and Crooks,
+he sought for a clue. One by one he went over Ackerman's business
+associates, including Garwood, and discarded them one by one. Then came
+the rumour of Garwood's acquisition of the Peninsular, an acquisition
+almost coincident with the rise in rates. Therefore, Locke argued,
+Garwood somehow benefited by it. But how? The railway man was not known
+to be interested in lumber. Still, as Locke saw it, he must be.
+
+"Here," said Locke to himself, "is this Central Lumber Company officered
+by dummies, capitalized for a mere trifle, and yet acquiring business
+after business. Why the secrecy? Who is behind it? Obviously some man or
+men who don't wish their identity known until they have accomplished a
+certain purpose. What is the purpose? So far it seems to be the buying
+out of existing lumber concerns. Ackerman approached Kent. For whom?
+Probably for this Central Lumber Company. Therefore Ackerman is one of
+those behind it. Ackerman's influence has been unfriendly to Kent in
+every way. Garwood no sooner acquired control of Peninsular stock than
+the rate on lumber was boosted. Ackerman is associated with him.
+Therefore it is not a wild hypothesis to say that Garwood is financing
+the Central Lumber Company."
+
+Thus Locke argued to himself, and he found fresh confirmation in the
+methods adopted toward Kent, which were typically those of Hugh Garwood.
+Then, too, Mr. Ackerman's evident discomposure when directly charged
+with association with him in a lumber business was suspicious.
+
+He arrived at these conclusions quite independently and mentioned them
+to no one. His surprise, therefore, was great when Joe Kent, dropping in
+one morning, asked what he knew about Hugh Garwood.
+
+"Did it ever strike you," Joe asked, "that he may be the man behind?"
+
+"It did," Locke answered, "but tell me how it happened to strike you."
+
+"Well--it just occurred to me," replied Joe, embarrassed.
+
+"Give up, give up," said the lawyer impatiently. "Don't hold out on your
+doctor, your banker, or your lawyer."
+
+Thereupon Joe, under pledge of secrecy, outlined the conjunction of
+events. It was a slight thing, but another corroboratory circumstance.
+Suppressing Joe's part, Locke mentioned his suspicions to Crooks.
+
+"I'll bet a thousand you're right," said the old lumberman thoughtfully.
+"Garwood, hey? He's the last man I'd have suspected. And usually the
+last man you suspect is the first man you ought to. It's just like him
+to cut a man's throat and then pick his pocket. Why, damn him"--Bill
+Crooks' voice rose in indignation--"his girl visited my girl for a month
+last summer. You know that, Joe; you used to trot around with her."
+
+Joe reddened. Crooks went on:
+
+"Well, what can we do about it? This is up to you, Locke. Start your
+game and I'll back it. So will Joe."
+
+"I haven't got enough evidence to start anything," said Locke. "I hope
+to prove Garwood's connection with the Peninsular when our application
+to the Transportation Commission comes up for hearing. Outside of that
+our best chance lies in investigating this Central Lumber Company. I'll
+see what I can find out about them and you'd better get busy along the
+same line and pump every lumberman and dealer you know."
+
+Kent's good spirits and increased cheerfulness were so noticeable that
+Jack Crooks, knowing of his recent flying trip, drew her own
+conclusions. Casually one evening she approached the subject.
+
+"Of course you saw Edith?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I saw her," Joe replied.
+
+"She must have been very glad to see you?"
+
+Joe smiled enigmatically. "Well, Jack, she didn't exactly fall on my
+neck. I don't think I brightened up life for her to any extent."
+
+"Modest young man. Are you aware that you have worn a sunny smile ever
+since you returned? You can't bluff me, Joe. Why don't you own up?"
+
+"Own up to what?" Joe's smile became a broad grin.
+
+Jack thought he looked idiotically pleased. To her eyes his face
+expressed the good-natured fatuity of the recently engaged man who
+rather likes to be joked about it--a being whom she despised. She was
+disappointed in Joe.
+
+"If you expect me to jolly you into admitting your engagement to her
+you're making a mistake," she said coldly. "I can wait till you see fit
+to announce it."
+
+"Are you sure you can?" he teased.
+
+"Very nicely. And I beg your pardon for what must have seemed an
+impertinent curiosity." She regarded him with an icy dignity.
+
+"Fine speech, that," Joe commented genially. "It's from some third act,
+isn't it? And then I say: 'Ah, Beatrice, why that cold and haughty tone?
+Me life holds no secrets from you: me heart----'"
+
+"Joe Kent, I'll throw something at you!" she cried indignantly. Then she
+laughed. "Joe, I'll come down to the ploughed ground. You and Edith were
+very much taken with each other, and when you come back, wearing an
+idiotic grin, I'm entitled to suppose. I confess to curiosity. Come,
+now; give up, like a good boy!"
+
+"There's nothing to give up," said Joe frankly. "Not a thing."
+
+"I know better," said Jack. "Edith was in a very confidential mood one
+night and she told me something. Afterward she regretted it and swore me
+to secrecy. Does that make any difference?"
+
+"Not much," said Joe. "But now I can tell you that I've been thrown down
+hard. What you spoke of is very much off." He outlined what had
+occurred. She listened, indignant but puzzled.
+
+"But--but you seem so cheerful about it. I don't understand. Weren't you
+fond of her? And if you weren't, why did you tell her you were? And if
+you were, why----"
+
+"Stop!" cried Joe. "Don't get me in so deep." He became serious. "Jack,
+most people make mistakes at times. Edith and I made one together. I
+think we both saw it as soon as it was made, but it took all this time
+to straighten out. I'm sure she's relieved, and, though it doesn't seem
+a nice thing to say, I'm just tickled to death."
+
+"Well," said Jack judicially, "I don't approve of flirting, and I never
+flirt myself. I think she was flirting straight through, and I don't
+know whether to blame you or not. But, anyway, I'm awfully glad it's all
+off."
+
+"It's great," said Joe. "Now I can get down to work."
+
+There was, indeed, much to be done. Wright looked after the
+manufacturing and sales end of the business and looked after it well;
+McKenna was an excellent walking boss; MacNutt, Deever, and Tobin were
+good, practical foremen. But the concern lacked a strong, competent
+executive head who knew the logging business intimately, who could
+decide at once and finally the questions that must ever arise, and who
+could command the loyalty and unquestioning obedience of his men in the
+camps.
+
+For there is a vast difference in the mind of a lumber jack between
+working for wages merely and working for an employer. For the one he
+will do a day's work; for the other he will do a day's work and a half,
+with the pay as an entirely secondary consideration. Just as great
+commanders have fired their troops with enthusiasm to the point of
+performing practical impossibilities through pride in them and in
+themselves and that magic, mystic thing called _esprit du corps_, so
+there have been employers who, in time of need, command the unswerving,
+uncomplaining loyalty of the shantyman. For such men he will work
+without grumbling in all kinds of weather; he will take all manner of
+chances on land or water; he will fight for them at the drop of a hat;
+and, finally, he will throw his loyalty into each lick of axe and pull
+of saw, so that at the end of the season it may be measured in saw logs.
+
+Nor does this depend wholly or even materially upon the treatment
+accorded him by the "Old Man"--save that he must have a square deal. He
+may be driven like a mule, cursed in language for which he would kill
+any one else, fed poorly and housed worse; but if the essential thing is
+possessed by the boss the lumber jack will not grumble overmuch nor ask
+for his time.
+
+And this essential is mysterious and hard to define. Much as the
+shantyman admires physical prowess, it is not a prime requisite. But
+courage is, and so is firmness in dealing with any situation. The boss
+must never recede from a position once taken. He may listen to advice,
+but he must decide for himself and by himself. He must never argue, he
+must never give reasons. He must hold himself aloof and above his men,
+and yet not overdo it. He must be approachable but dignified, friendly
+but not familiar. He must be boss, first, last, and all the time, and
+from his decisions, right or wrong, there must be no appeal and of them
+no slackness of enforcement.
+
+William Kent had filled this bill. With his passing a place became
+vacant. Some of the old hands hired again into the Kent camps; more did
+not come back, but went to others of renown. New blood drifted in, and a
+generation arose which literally knew not Joseph--to whom the name of
+Kent meant nothing. The old hands would have fought at one word uttered
+against the "Old Man's" son, whom most of them had never seen, but they
+would have done so on general principles merely, and not because they
+cherished any particular feeling toward him. Neither walking boss nor
+foreman could take the place which William Kent had filled.
+
+Thus the work of the camps was no better and no worse than the average.
+The foremen's capability ensured fair effort. But the something
+necessary to weld the crews into a supremely efficient machine was
+lacking.
+
+The winter opened hard and dry, without snowfall. Day after day the wind
+wailed through the bare arms of the deciduous trees and moaned in the
+feathery tops of the pines. The ground was frozen to an iron hardness,
+and the little lakes, creeks, and rivers were bound in black ice, smooth
+and unbroken.
+
+At the Wind River camp the logging roads--veins leading to main arteries
+which in turn led to the river and the banking grounds--were useless. By
+dint of effort and good luck logs could be got to the various skidways
+located at convenient places beside the roads, and piled there, but they
+could not be transported farther. The big sleighs with their nine-foot
+bunks, built to accommodate ten thousand feet and upward of logs at a
+load, lay idle. MacNutt prayed for snow, or, rather, cursed the lack of
+it.
+
+When it came, with continued cold weather, it was hard, dry, and
+powdery. It had no bottom. It gritted like sand beneath the
+sleigh-shoes, and they went through it to the ground, even without a
+load. To obviate this and to get going in some way MacNutt put the
+sprinklers to work. These were huge tank affairs on runners, drawn by
+from four to six horses. At the top of the tank was a stout, wooden
+triangle with a block. A wire rope ran through the block. At one end of
+the rope was a barrel; at the other end was a horse. The horse walked
+away; the barrel, filled at a water-hole cut in the ice, ran up an
+inclined, rungless ladder to the top of the tank, where it dumped its
+contents automatically. The water found its exit from the tank through
+auger holes bored in the rear, controlled by a closely fitting trap
+door. Thus the roads were flooded, they froze, and the hauling began.
+
+So far MacNutt had seen nothing of Rough Shan McCane. Occasionally on a
+Sunday, when work was suspended, one of the latter's men would drift
+over, but the gang kept very much to themselves. There was no indication
+of undue sociability. Still MacNutt, on the principle that storms always
+brew in fine weather, kept a very open pair of eyes and ears. Some of
+the men, he knew, could not resist liquor; given access to it they would
+become drunk as certainly as effect ever follows cause. Over these weak
+vessels, then, he kept watch.
+
+It was shortly after the road went into operation that he found the
+first sign of trouble. A swamper, named Flett, was trimming the top of a
+fallen tree. MacNutt observed the listless rise and fall of the man's
+axe in high displeasure. It fell almost of its own weight; there was no
+power to the blow, and instead of being recovered and swung up again
+with vim for another stroke the blade lay for an appreciable instant in
+the gash.
+
+"You, Flett," rasped MacNutt, "I'll have no sojerin' on this job!
+Understand?"
+
+The man turned, startled, exhibiting a pair of reddened, bloodshot eyes.
+
+"Who's sojerin'?" he growled.
+
+"Wake up an' work, ye damned lazy dog!" roared MacNutt. "Take a man's
+pay, eat a man's grub, an' then loaf on the job, would ye, ye
+slab-mouthed, slouchin' son of sin?" For the first time he noticed the
+man's eyes, and swore a great oath. "Ye've been drinkin'!"
+
+"I ain't," Flett denied sullenly.
+
+"Ye lie!" barked MacNutt. "Where did ye get it?"
+
+"Go to blazes!" said Flett.
+
+MacNutt caught him by the throat, crooked a knee, and threw him back
+down across the log with a shock that almost broke his spine.
+
+"Talk, ye dog, or I'll kill ye!" he gritted; and Flett, staring up
+helpless and half stunned into the savage face of the foreman, gave up.
+
+"Regan and me got a bottle apiece from a man in McCane's camp."
+
+MacNutt jerked him to his feet and turned him loose. "Get yer time
+to-night and hike in the morning!" he ordered. "You're fired! Not
+because ye got drunk, but for bein' no use, drunk or sober."
+
+He sought Regan. Regan was doing a man's work, and doing it well.
+
+"I've fired Flett," said MacNutt without preliminary. "I'll have no
+booze in this camp, Regan."
+
+Regan, who was made of different stuff than his fellow-transgressor,
+spat on the dry snow and regarded the foreman with a level stare.
+
+"Do I get my time?" he asked.
+
+"Not unless you want it," MacNutt replied. "I can do with ye or without
+ye. Suit yourself. But I'll have no more of it."
+
+"A drink now an' then hurts no man," said Regan.
+
+"It raises Cain with a camp, and you know it," MacNutt retorted.
+
+"That's true enough," admitted Regan, who was not unreasonable, "but the
+boys over to McCane's camp shoved it at us. They've plenty there."
+
+MacNutt said no more. He could not forbid his men from strolling on
+Sunday, when there was nothing else to do, over the few miles which
+separated the two camps. But he could and did issue a warning that any
+man bringing liquor into the camp would get his time forthwith.
+
+He saw no man drunk, but the little signs were unmistakable. The
+percentage of quarrels and fights became higher; the bunk-house at
+night, usually noisy, was now uproarious; some of the men obeyed with
+less alacrity and grumbled with a great deal more; and through the
+entire crew there spread a spirit of devil-may-care slackness very hard
+indeed upon a foreman.
+
+One Sunday MacNutt shouldered an axe and took the well-marked trail
+which led through the forest to McCane's camp. Arrived at the compass
+line dividing the limits, he sat down and lit his pipe. For an hour he
+waited, smoking thoughtfully, watching the fluffy, impudent
+whiskey-jacks. At the end of that time three men appeared down the trail
+from McCane's. One carried a sack over his shoulder, and the sack bulged
+suggestively in the shape of a two-gallon jug. MacNutt tapped out his
+pipe and stepped into the trail.
+
+"Where are you men headin' for?" he asked.
+
+"None o' your business," replied the man with the sack.
+
+"What's in that sack?" MacNutt demanded.
+
+"Cold tea," answered the man, and the others laughed. MacNutt shut his
+lips grimly.
+
+"Go back and take your booze with you," he ordered; "and don't let me
+catch you this side of that line again."
+
+"Must think you own the woods," said he of the jug, slipping the bag
+from his shoulder in readiness for trouble. "You go to hell!"
+
+The axe resting on MacNutt's shoulder leaped forward and down in a
+sweeping stroke. There was a crash of crockery and a sudden strong odour
+of alcohol; following these a tremendous burst of profanity. The three
+men rushed at MacNutt.
+
+The foreman was not foolish enough to meet three hardened "bully-boys"
+with his fists. His axe flashed up and just missed the head of the
+leader in its descent. There was such evident deadly sincerity in the
+blow that the men paused. MacNutt gave them no time. He charged them
+instantly, axe aloft, and, prudence getting the better of anger, they
+ran for their lives. MacNutt followed for a short distance, shouted a
+final warning, and returned to camp. He did not think that he had put a
+stop to the contraband traffic, but he had fired the first gun and made
+his attitude clear.
+
+The following day, as he was overseeing the work, Rough Shan McCane came
+striding through the snow.
+
+"What's this I hear about your chasing three of my men with an axe?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Well, what about it?" asked MacNutt indifferently, and the men near at
+hand listened with all their ears.
+
+"This much," said Rough Shan truculently. "My men have a right in the
+woods, an' not you nor anny one else will stop them going where they
+like."
+
+"Well, I did stop them," retorted MacNutt. "I smashed a jug of booze
+they were bringing to my camp, and I'd have split their heads if they
+hadn't run."
+
+This was news to the Kent men. MacNutt rose several notches in their
+estimation. Regan, who had expected to share the contents of the jug and
+had been disappointed by its non-arrival, whispered to Devlin:
+
+"Ain't ould Mac th' bully-boy? I'd 'a' give a week's pay to 'a' seen
+it."
+
+"A jug of booze among fifty men!" sneered Rough Shan. "What's that?
+Can't ye let the boys have a drink if they want it? An' if it was a
+bar'l ain't ye man enough to be boss of yer own camp?"
+
+"When I want your help to run it I'll send for you," rasped MacNutt.
+"There's been booze comin' over from your camp, an' I'm goin' to stop
+it; an' the way I stop it is my business."
+
+"If you lay out a man of mine I'll take you to pieces," threatened Rough
+Shan. "I done it once, an' I'll do it again."
+
+MacNutt's eyes blazed. He caught Regan's axe and tossed it on the snow
+before McCane. Himself he seized Devlin's.
+
+"If you want a fight pick up that axe and go to it!" he cried.
+
+McCane was rough and tough, but he had come to run a bluff rather than
+to look for serious trouble, and a fight with axes was too cold-blooded
+a proposition, even for him.
+
+"I'll go ye with fists an' feet in a minute," he offered.
+
+"No," MacNutt refused. "Take an axe. I want to kill ye!"
+
+McCane was bluffed, to the huge delight of the Kent men.
+
+"I'm no damn fool, if you are," he said. "Leave my men alone, an' I'll
+leave you alone. But if you don't, I'll come over and take you apart."
+
+"Bring your own axe," said MacNutt. "Now you get out o' here."
+
+This conversation, retailed at the camp by Devlin, Regan, and others,
+with such additions, mainly blasphemous, as the imagination of the
+individual narrator could suggest, sent MacNutt's stock booming. The
+lumber jack loves a fighter, and a man who could run three of McCane's
+crew out of the woods and bluff Rough Shan himself was one after their
+own hearts. Regan, himself a rough-and-tumble artist of considerable
+ability, voiced the sentiments of the better men.
+
+"I like me drink as well as anny man; but ould Mac is boss, an' what he
+says goes wid me, after this. I'll save me thirst till the drive is
+down, an' then--" An uplifting of the eyes and a licking of the lips
+expressed more than mere words.
+
+But many of the men did not see it in that way. If they could get liquor
+they would drink it. Visitors from McCane's camp came empty-handed, and
+Kent's men seldom went there. And yet there was liquor in the camp!
+
+MacNutt could not account for it. He pondered the problem over many
+pipes. "They get it somewhere," he said to himself. "For a week not a
+man has gone to McCane's and not a man of his has been here. There's
+only one answer. They've got a _cache_."
+
+Having reached this conclusion by the Holmes process of elimination, he
+began a new line of investigation; and he was struck by the popularity
+of the tote road as a promenade. There was no reason why the men should
+not walk on it, and it bore directly away from McCane's camp, but in the
+light of his deduction the fact had to be explained.
+
+MacNutt walked out the tote road. Over a mile from camp he saw a blazed
+tree. With this as a base he began a systematic search, and finally
+found beneath the butt of a windfall a small keg containing rye whiskey
+of peculiarly malignant quality. In the keg was a spigot, so that each
+visitor might fill a bottle for himself.
+
+MacNutt did not demolish the keg. Instead he made a flying trip to camp.
+When he returned he carried one bottle of horse liniment, half a pound
+of cayenne pepper, a tin of mustard, two boxes of "Little Giant" pills,
+a cake of soap, and a huge plug of black chewing tobacco. All these he
+introduced to the keg's interior and replaced the spigot. This took
+time. Afterward he took fifteen minutes' violent exercise in shaking the
+keg.
+
+Thus it was that Hicks, up-ending Chartrand's bottle with a grin of pure
+anticipation, suddenly choked and gagged, for he had taken two mighty
+swallows before the taste reached his toughened palate. Now two swallows
+may not make a summer, but they may make a very sick lumber jack. The
+winter forest echoed to the sounds of upheaval. Between paroxysms Hicks
+cursed Chartrand. The latter regarded him in amazement.
+
+"W'at's de mattaire wit' you, hey?" he queried. "Mo' Gee! I t'ink you
+eat too moche grub dat you ain't chaw. S'pose you tak one leetle drink,
+encore, for help hold heem down."
+
+"I'll kill you, you blasted pea-soup!" howled Hicks. "I'll kick your
+backbone up through your hat; I'll----" Here circumstances over which he
+had no control interrupted him.
+
+"I' t'ink you go crazee, me," said Chartrand. "You eat lak one dam beeg
+_cochon_--de pork, de bean, de bread an' molass'--_tous les choses_. All
+right. I tak heem one leetle drink, _moi-meme_. _A votre sante, mon
+ami!_"
+
+He grinned pleasantly at Hicks and tilted the bottle to his own mouth,
+rolling a beatific eye as the liquid gurgled down. Suddenly he choked as
+Hicks had done.
+
+"_Sacré nom du bon Dieu!_" he shrieked, spitting like a cat. "What is it
+that it is? Ah, holy Sainte Agathe, I am poison' lak one wolf! Ah, _bon
+Saint Jean Baptiste, venez mes secours_, for I have been one sinful man!
+_Sacré dam_, I burn lak hell inside!"
+
+Hicks, sitting weakly on a log, his hands clasped across his outraged
+epigastrium, watched Chartrand's gyrations with huge satisfaction, and
+roared vindictive sarcasm at the final catastrophe.
+
+"Eat too much grub that I don't chaw, do I?" he mocked. "Make a pig of
+meself wid pork an' beans, hey? Take some yerself, me laddybuck. That's
+right--tie yerself in knots. How would ye like another little drink to
+help hold her down?"
+
+In the end they sat together on the log, cursing in two languages, and
+regarding the fragments of the broken bottle balefully. Chartrand rose
+and picked up a heavy club.
+
+"Bagosh, I bus' up dat keg for sure!" he announced. But Hicks, whose
+wisdom was of the serpentine variety, demurred.
+
+"Let the boys find it out for themselves," he counselled. "If we give
+ourselves away we get the dirty laugh."
+
+Therefore there descended upon the camp a sudden sickness amounting to
+an epidemic; for the effects of MacNutt's concoction, though violent and
+immediate, were also far-reaching and enduring. The foreman noted the
+victims of his strategy, issued them chlorodyne from the van, and kept
+his mouth shut. He had won the first round, but he knew very well it was
+only a preliminary. Rough Shan was still to be reckoned with.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The east line of Kent's limit butted on the west line of Clancys', and
+in due course MacNutt began to cut along the line. The snow he had been
+longing for fell in plenty and the road already bottomed and made became
+good. A constant stream of logs flowed down it on the big-bunked
+sleighs, draining the skidways, which were continually replenished by
+more logs travoyed out of the woods. At the banking grounds the big
+piles grew. The work was going merrily.
+
+About the time MacNutt began to cut to his line McCane did the same. The
+crews fraternized to some extent, but the bosses had nothing to say to
+each other, each keeping to his own side. Hence Kent's foreman was
+surprised when one morning, after a fresh fall of snow, Rough Shan
+accompanied by two other men came to him. He noted, also, with an eye
+experienced in reading signs of trouble, that most of McCane's crew were
+working, or making a pretence of working, just across the line.
+
+"These men is sawyers, MacNutt," said Rough Shan. "Yesterday, late on,
+they dropped a tree an' cut her into two lengths. This morning the logs
+is gone."
+
+"What have I got to do with that?" asked MacNutt.
+
+"That's what I've come to find out," retorted McCane. "Our teamsters
+never touched them. Logs don't get away by themselves."
+
+MacNutt frowned at him. "If you think we took your logs there's our
+skidways, and the road is open to the river. Take a look for yourself."
+
+McCane and his men went to the nearest skidway and examined the logs.
+They passed on to another, and MacNutt thought it advisable to follow.
+At the second skidway one of the sawyers slapped a stick of timber.
+
+"This is her," he announced. "I know her by this here knot. Yes, an'
+here's the other length."
+
+Jackson, Ward, and Haggarty, cant-hook men and old employees of the
+Kents, had been regarding McCane and his followers with scowling
+disfavour, and Haggarty, from his post on top of the pile where he had
+been "decking" the logs as they were sent up to him, asked:
+
+"What's wrong wid them sticks?"
+
+"We cut them yesterday on our limit," the man told him.
+
+"Ye lie!" cried Haggarty fiercely, dropping his cant-hook and leaping to
+the ground. Jackson and Ward sprang forward as one man.
+
+"You keep out o' this," said Rough Shan. "This is log stealin', and a
+matter for your boss, if he's man enough to talk to me face."
+
+"Man enough? Come over here an' say we stole yer logs, ye dirty----"
+Haggarty's language became lurid. He was an iron-fisted old-timer and
+hated McCane.
+
+MacNutt, when he saw Haggarty drop his cant-hook and jump, ran across to
+the skids. So did other men at hand. A ring of fierce, bearded faces and
+level, inquiring eyes gathered about the intruders.
+
+"Here is the logs, MacNutt," said Rough Shan. "Now, I want to know how
+they come here."
+
+MacNutt examined the logs. They had not yet been branded by the
+marking-iron with the big K which proclaimed Kent ownership. They were
+in no material particular different from the rest. It was possible that
+his teamsters had made a mistake. His sawyers could not identify the
+logs positively; they thought they had cut them, but were not sure. On
+the other hand, the two teamsters, Laviolette and old Ben Watkins, were
+very sure they had never drawn those particular sticks to the pile.
+
+"One o' yeez must 'a done it," asserted McCane.
+
+"Not on your say-so," retorted Watkins, whose fighting blood had not
+cooled with age. "Don't you get gay with the old man, Shan McCane.
+I'll----"
+
+"Shut up, Ben!" MacNutt ordered. He turned to McCane. "I'll give you the
+logs because your men are sure and mine ain't. Break them out o' that,
+Haggarty; and you, Laviolette, hitch on and pull them across the line to
+wherever they say they laid. All the same I want to tell ye it wasn't my
+teamsters snaked them here."
+
+"An' do ye think mine did?--a likely t'ing" said Rough Shan. "Mind this,
+now, MacNutt, you be more careful about whose logs ye take."
+
+MacNutt lit his pipe deliberately before replying.
+
+"The next one ye pull onto our skidways we'll keep," said he.
+
+McCane glowered at him. "Ye've got a gall. Steal our logs, an' tell me I
+done it meself! I want to tell ye, MacNutt, I won't take that from you
+nor anny man."
+
+"Go back and boss your gang," said MacNutt coldly, refusing the evident
+challenge.
+
+He had made up his mind to give no provocation; but he had also
+determined to push the fight to a finish when it came, as he saw it
+inevitably must. The occurrence of the morning' confirmed his suspicion
+that McCane was following out a deliberate plan. He perceived, too, that
+the matter of the logs was a tactical mistake of the latter's. For, if
+Rough Shan had confined his activities to supplying the men with whiskey
+and fomenting discontent, MacNutt would have been forced to discharge
+half of them, and good hands were scarce. Thus the camp would have been
+practically crippled. But an accusation of log stealing would weld the
+men solidly together for the honour of their employer.
+
+Haggarty, the iron-fisted cant-hook man, who had drawn Kent pay for
+years, took up the matter in the bunk-house that night.
+
+"Nobody knows better nor Rough Shan hisself who put them logs on our
+skidway," he declared with a tremendous oath. "An' for why did he do it?
+To pick a row, no less. He thought ould Mac would keep the sticks an'
+tell him to go to the divil. Mac was too foxy for him that time."
+
+"If he wants a row he can have it," said Regan; "him or anny of his
+gang. It's the dirty bunch they are. An' I want to say right here," he
+continued, glaring at the row of men on the "deacon seat," "that the man
+that fills himself up on rotgut whiskey from McCane's camp after this is
+a low-lived son of a dog, an' I will beat the head off of him once when
+he's drunk an' again when he's sober."
+
+A growl of approval ran along the bench.
+
+"That's right."
+
+"That's the talk, Larry!"
+
+"To hell wid McCane an' his whiskey, both!"
+
+"Mo' Gee! we pass ourself on hees camp an' clean heem out."
+
+The temperance wave was so strong that the minority maintained a
+discreet silence. Indeed, even those who relished the contraband whiskey
+most would have relished no less an encounter with McCane's crew, for
+whom they had little use, individually or collectively. Save for the
+first few bottles to whet their appetites, the whiskey had not been
+supplied free. They had paid high for it, and the mystery of the fatal
+keg had never been cleared up. The sufferers were inclined to blame one
+or more of McCane's men, and, not being able to fasten the
+responsibility for the outrage on any individual, saddled it on the
+entire crew.
+
+At this juncture Joe Kent arrived in camp, following out a laudable
+determination to become acquainted with the woods end of his business.
+He came at night, and took up his quarters with MacNutt.
+
+Although he had visited camps before with his father, it was still fresh
+and new to Joe--the roomy box stove, the log walls hung with mackinaw
+garments, moccasins, and snowshoes, the water pail on the shelf beside
+the door, the bunks with their heavy gray blankets and bearskins--all
+the raffle that accumulates in a foreman's winter quarters. And because
+his imagination was young and active and unspoiled he saw in these
+things the elements of romance where an older hand would have seen
+utility only. He felt that they typified a life which he had come to
+learn, that they were part of a game which he had studied theoretically
+from a distance, but was now come to play himself.
+
+MacNutt was silent from habit. A foreman cannot mingle socially with his
+men to any extent and preserve his authority. Hence his life is lonely
+and loneliness begets silence. He answered questions with clear brevity,
+but did not make conversation. He was not at all embarrassed by the
+presence of his employer; nor would he have been if the latter had been
+old and experienced instead of young and green. He knew very well that
+Kent had come to learn the practical side of the woods business. That
+was all right and he approved of it. He would tell him whatever he
+wanted to know; but as a basis he must know enough to ask intelligent
+questions. Outside of that he must learn by experience. That was how
+MacNutt had learned himself, and if Joe had asked him the best way to
+obtain practical knowledge he would have been advised to go into the
+woods with another man's crew and use an axe.
+
+"And now about McCane's gang," said Joe when he had learned what he
+could absorb as to the progress of the work. "Are they giving you any
+trouble."
+
+"Not more than I can handle," said MacNutt, and for the first time told
+of the doctored whiskey.
+
+Joe roared at the recital, and MacNutt smiled grimly. He was not a
+humourist, and his narrative was not at all embellished. He went on to
+relate the incident of the logs and his deductions.
+
+Kent thought of Finn Clancy and frowned. He told the foreman of the
+contract with the Clancy firm and of the narrowly averted row with Finn.
+
+"Then they are behind McCane," said MacNutt conclusively. "That means he
+will make it bad for us yet--unless we stop him."
+
+"I don't understand," said Joe.
+
+"It's this way," MacNutt explained. "McCane has his instructions, but
+you can't prove them. Suppose he claims a log and doesn't get it and a
+fight starts between the crews--why, he's jobbing the limit himself and
+the Clancys ain't responsible."
+
+"A bit of a scrap won't matter," said Joe cheerfully.
+
+"It will matter if the woods ain't big enough to hold but one crew--ours
+or theirs," returned MacNutt. "I've seen it happen before."
+
+"Tell me about it," said Joe. He listened eagerly to the concise
+narrative that followed, which was the little-known history of a logging
+war in which the casualties were large.
+
+"The dead men were reported killed by falling timber," the foreman
+concluded. "Five of them there was--five lives, and all for one pine
+tree that turned out punk when it was cut." He tapped his pipe out
+against the stove. "You'll be tired. I get up before light, but I'll try
+not to wake you, Mr. Kent."
+
+"I'll get up when you do," said Joe. "I'm going out on the job with the
+crew."
+
+"All right; I'll wake you," said the foreman without comment, but
+likewise without conviction.
+
+In the morning--or as it seemed to Joe about midnight--he awoke with a
+light in his eyes and the foreman's hand on his shoulder. The light came
+from the lamp. Outside it was pitch dark, and the wind was shouting
+through the forest and whining around the cabin. Now and then a volley
+of snow pattered against the window.
+
+By way of contrast never had a bed seemed so absolutely comfortable. For
+a moment he was tempted to exercise his right to sleep. The ghost of a
+smile on MacNutt's face decided for him. He tumbled out, soused his head
+in water, pulled on his heavy clothes, high German socks, and moccasins,
+and in five minutes stood, a very solid, good-looking young lumber jack
+with a very healthy appetite for breakfast.
+
+The darkness was lifting when the crew left camp for the woods. Joe and
+the foreman tramped behind. There was little speech. However excellent
+early rising may be theoretically it does not sweeten the temper,
+especially in mid-winter. There was a notable absence of laughter, of
+jest, even of ordinarily civil conversation. Almost every man bent his
+energies to the consumption of tobacco. They had not shaken off the
+lethargy of the night, and their mental processes were not yet astir.
+They plodded mechanically, backs humped, eyes upon the ground, dully
+resentful of the weather, the work, of existence itself.
+
+Arrived at the scene of operations, the lethargy vanished. Men sighed as
+they lifted axes for the first blow--such a sigh as one gives when
+stooping to resume a burden. With the fall of the blow, and the shock of
+it running up the helve through arms and shoulders, they were completely
+awake. What remained of the dull, aimless resentment was directed at the
+timber that ringed them around--the timber that represented at once a
+livelihood and an unending toil.
+
+Joe followed MacNutt, keenly observant. He knew little about the
+work--how it should be done, how much each man and team should do, where
+odd moments might be saved, and the way in which a desired object might
+be accomplished with the least expenditure of effort. But he was by no
+means absolutely ignorant, for, like the average young American, he had
+spent considerable time in the woods, which involves a more or less
+intimate acquaintance with the axe, and he had also the average
+American's aptitude for tools and constructive work of any kind. Then,
+too, he had absorbed unconsciously much theory from his father and from
+the conversation of his father's friends, added to which was the study
+and thought of the past few months. Thus he possessed a groundwork.
+Remained analysis of the actual individual operations as they were
+performed before his eyes, and synthesis into a whole.
+
+With the foreman he went over most of the job, from the first slashings
+to the river rollways, and thus gained a comprehensive idea of what had
+been done, what remained to do, and what time there was to do it in. He
+drank scalding tea and ate pork, bread, and doughnuts with the men at
+noon, and smoked a pipe, sheltered from the biting north wind by a thick
+clump of firs. In the afternoon, to keep himself warm, he took an axe
+and trimmed tree tops with the swampers, showing a fair degree of
+efficiency with the implement. Also he took a turn at the end of the
+long, flexible cross-cut saw, an exercise which made a new set of
+muscles ache; but he learned the rudiments of it--to pull with a long,
+smooth, level swing, not to push, but to let the other man pull on the
+return motion, to tap in a wedge when the settling trunk began to bind
+the thin, rending ribbon of steel, and to use kerosene on the blade when
+it gummed and pulled heavily and stickily. When the work ceased with the
+falling darkness he tramped back to camp with the men, ate a huge
+supper, spent an hour in the bunk-house with them, and sang them a couple
+of songs which were received with wild applause, and then rolled into
+his bunk, dog-tired, and was asleep as his head settled in the pillow.
+
+Behind him, in the sleeping-camp, he left a favourable impression.
+
+"He's good stuff, that lad," said Haggarty. "He minds me of some one--a
+good man, too."
+
+"Would it be Alec Macnamara, now?" asked Regan. Macnamara, a famous
+"white-water birler," had met his fate in the breaking of a log-jam some
+years before.
+
+"That's who it is, God rest his soul," said Haggarty. "He's younger, but
+he's the dead spit of Alec in the eyes an' mouth. It's my belief he
+laughs when he fights, like him, an' he'd die game as Alec died."
+
+Whether Haggarty's belief was right or wrong did not appear. Nothing
+arose to put the young boss's courage to a test. All went merry as a
+marriage bell, and the quantity of logs pouring down to the banking
+grounds attested the quality of the work done. Then came trouble out of
+a comparatively clear sky.
+
+One day Joe was bossing the job, MacNutt being in camp. His bossing,
+truth to tell, lay more in the moral effect of his presence than in
+issuing orders or giving instruction. Having the good sense to recognize
+his present limitations, he let the men alone. The air was soft with a
+promise of snow, and he lit his pipe and sauntered up the logging road.
+
+Before a skidway stood four men in hot argument. Two of these were
+Haggarty and Jackson. One was unknown to Kent. The fourth he recognized
+as Rough Shan McCane.
+
+"Here's Mr. Kent now," said Haggarty, catching sight of him.
+
+Rough Shan favored Joe with a contemptuous stare. "Where's MacNutt?" he
+demanded. "I told him this log stealin' had got to stop."
+
+"MacNutt is in camp," said Joe. "You can talk to me if you like. What's
+the matter?"
+
+Rough Shan cursed the absent foreman. "Log stealin's the matter," he
+announced. "A load of our logs has gone slick an' clean."
+
+"Gone where?" asked Joe coldly.
+
+"MacNutt knows where!" asserted Rough Shan with an oath. "This is the
+second time. I'm goin' to find them, an' when I do----"
+
+"What'll ye do?" demanded Haggarty truculently. "It is the likes of you
+can come over here an' say----"
+
+"Dry up, Haggarty!" Joe commanded shortly. "Now, look here, Mr. McCane,
+we haven't got your logs."
+
+"But ye have," Rough Shan proclaimed loudly. "I know the dirty tricks of
+ye. That's stealin'--stealin', d'ye mind, young felly? I want them logs
+an' I want 'em quick, drawed over an' decked on our skidways an' no
+words about it. As it is, I'm a good mind to run ye out o' the woods."
+
+Joe's temper began to boil. Here was an elemental condition confronting
+him. Rough Shan was big and hard and tough, but he was not much awed. To
+him the big lumber jack was not more formidable than any one of a score
+of husky young giants who had done their several and collective bests to
+break his neck on the football field, and he was not inclined to take
+any further gratuitous abuse.
+
+"What makes you think we took your logs?" he asked.
+
+"Who else could 'a' done it?" demanded Rough Shan with elemental logic.
+
+"You might have done it yourself," Joe told him. "Now, you listen to me
+for a minute and keep a civil tongue in your head. You're trying to make
+trouble for us, and I know it, and I know who is behind you. If you want
+a row you can have it, now or any old time. You won't run anybody out of
+the woods. As for the logs, you know what MacNutt told you. Still, if
+you can prove ownership of any, satisfactorily to me, you may haul them
+back with the team you hauled them in with. But, mind you, this is the
+last time. The trick is stale, and you mustn't play it again."
+
+"I'll find them an' then I'll talk to you," said Rough Shan with
+contempt. "Come on, Mike." He made for the nearest skidway.
+
+"You two men go along and tell the boys to let him look till he's
+tired," said Joe to Haggarty and Jackson. "Don't scrap with him,
+remember."
+
+"Well, we'll try not," said Haggarty. "That's Mike Callahan wid him--a
+divil!"
+
+"You do what I tell you!" Joe snapped, and Haggarty and Jackson uttered
+a suddenly respectful "Yes, sir."
+
+In half an hour Jackson came for Joe. He found Rough Shan at the banking
+grounds. Before him lay a little pile of thin, round circles of wood;
+also sawdust. McCane picked one circle up and handed it to him.
+
+It was a slice cut from the end of a saw log. One side was blank. On the
+other the letters "CB" proclaiming the ownership of Clancy Brothers were
+deeply indented.
+
+"Well, what about it?" asked Joe.
+
+"What about it!" Rough Shan repeated. "Here's the ends sawed from our
+marked logs. Then ye mark them fresh for yerself. A nice trick! That's
+jail for some wan."
+
+"Pretty smooth," said Joe. "Saves you the trouble of hauling the logs in
+here, doesn't it? One man could carry these ends in a sack."
+
+Rough Shan glared at him. "I want them logs, an' I want them now," he
+cried with an oath.
+
+"All right; take them," Joe retorted. "Of course you'll have to match
+these ends on the logs they belong to. Possibly you overlooked that
+little detail. Haggarty, you see that he makes a good fit."
+
+Haggarty grinned. "Then I'm thinkin' I'll be goin' over onto Clancys'
+limit wid him," he commented.
+
+Rough Shan took a fierce step forward. Joe stood his ground and the
+other paused.
+
+"Our logs is here," he exclaimed. "These ends proves it. I'll not match
+them, nor try to. I give ye an hour to deliver a full load of logs,
+average twelve-inch tops, at our skidways."
+
+"Not a log, unless you prove ownership of it, and then you do your own
+delivering," said Joe. "Pshaw! McCane, what's the use? You can't bluff
+me. Let your employers go to law if they want to."
+
+"Law!" cried Rough Shan. "We run our own law in these woods, young
+felly. I give ye fair warnin'!"
+
+"You make me tired," Joe retorted. "Why don't you _do_ something?"
+
+Joe was quick on his feet, but he was quite unprepared for the sudden
+blow which Rough Shan delivered. It caught him on the jaw and staggered
+him. Instantly Haggarty hurled himself at McCane, while Jackson tackled
+Callahan. The men at the rollways ran to the scrap. Callahan floored
+Jackson and went for Joe, who met him with straight, stiff punches which
+surprised the redoubtable Mike. As reinforcements came up, McCane and
+his henchman backed against a pile of timber.
+
+"Come on, ye measly log stealers!" roared the foreman, thoroughly in his
+element. The odds against him had no effect save to stimulate his
+language. He poured forth a torrent of the vilest abuse that ever
+defiled a pinery. Beside him Callahan, heavy-set and gorilla-armed,
+supplemented his remarks. There was no doubt of the thorough gameness of
+the pair.
+
+In went Haggarty, Reese, Ward, and Chartrand. Others followed. The rush
+simply overwhelmed the two. They went down, using fists, knees, and feet
+impartially. A dozen men strove to get at them.
+
+[Illustration: Haggarty and Rough Shan, locked in a deadly grip, fought
+like bulldogs]
+
+Joe's sense of fair play was outraged. He caught the nearest man by the
+collar and slung him back twenty feet.
+
+"Quit it!" he shouted. "Haggarty! Chartrand! White! Let them alone, do
+you hear me?" In his anger he rose to heights of unsuspected eloquence
+and his words cut like whips. The men disentangled before his voice and
+hands. At the bottom Haggarty and Rough Shan, locked in a deadly grip,
+fought like bulldogs, each trying for room to apply the knee to the
+other's stomach.
+
+"Pull 'em apart!" Joe ordered sharply, and unwilling hands did so. They
+cursed each other with deep hatred. Their vocabularies were much on a
+par and highly unedifying.
+
+"That'll do, Haggarty!" Joe rasped. "McCane, you shut your dirty mouth
+and get out of here."
+
+"You--" McCane began venomously.
+
+"Don't say it," Joe warned him. "Clear out!"
+
+"A dozen of ye to two!" cried McCane. "If I had ye alone, Kent, I'd put
+ye acrost me knee!"
+
+"Come to my camp any night this week and I'll take you with the gloves,"
+said Joe. "If you want a scrap for all hands bring your crew with you.
+Now, boys, get back on the job. We've wasted enough time. These men are
+going."
+
+He turned away, and the men scattered unwillingly to their several
+employments. Rough Shan and Callahan, left alone, hesitated, shouted a
+few perfunctory curses, and finally tramped off. But every one who knew
+them knew also that this was only the beginning.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Locke, by means known to himself alone, managed to have his application
+to the Transportation Commission set down for an early hearing. This
+made Joe's presence necessary, and he came out of the woods lean and
+hard and full of vigour. Neither McCane nor his crew had taken up the
+challenge, and their intentions remained matter of speculation. Just
+before the hearing, however, the railway suddenly restored the old
+freight rate on lumber, thus taking the wind out of Locke's sails.
+
+"This puts us in the position of flogging a dead horse," he grumbled.
+"Now the commission will tell us we ought to be satisfied, and refuse to
+let me show the genesis of the cancelled rate. Confound it! I depended
+on this to find out more about Garwood."
+
+This prediction turned out to be correct. The commission refused to
+allow its time to be wasted. The old rate was restored, and that was not
+complained of. Therefore, said they, there was no question for them to
+consider, their powers not being retroactive. Locke was unable to
+convince them to the contrary.
+
+Outgeneralled in his plan of attack he sought another, finding it in a
+grievance possessed by one Dingle, a small contractor in a town on the
+O. & N. There the price of lumber had been boosted sky-high, and this
+destroyed Dingle's profits on contracts he had undertaken. Investigation
+showed that the Central Lumber Company had bought out two competing
+dealers and immediately raised the price. Locke brought action for
+Dingle, claiming damages and charging an unlawful combination. He named
+the Central Lumber Company, its directors, Ackerman, Garwood, and the O.
+& N. Railway, defendants. It was, in fact, a legal fishing expedition
+and little more. The object of it was to obtain information looking to
+an action by Crooks and Kent against the same defendants, with the
+Peninsular Railway added.
+
+Locke's first intimation that he had drawn blood came in the shape of a
+visit from Henry J. Beemer, manager of the Peninsular. Beemer offered
+him the position of general counsel for that railway. The offer was
+apparently _bona fide_, and no visible strings dangled from it. Beemer,
+in fact, was not aware of the Dingle action and was merely carrying out
+instructions, and he was much surprised when Locke refused the offer.
+
+"But why?" he asked. "It's a good thing."
+
+"I know it is," said Locke with a sigh, as he thought of his own
+rough-and-tumble practice. "Still I can't take it. I don't suppose you
+are aware of the fact, Beemer, but this is an attempt to buy me up."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Beemer indignantly. "If we had wanted to buy you we
+should have done it before. There is no litigation against us now in
+which you are interested. We make you the offer in good faith, because
+you are the man for the job."
+
+"I have litigation pending against Ackerman and Garwood," the lawyer
+informed him. "You didn't know that. So, you see, I have to refuse."
+
+Beemer took his departure, rather indignant at Ackerman for keeping him
+in the dark. But a few days afterward Hugh Garwood himself walked into
+Locke's office.
+
+"My name is Garwood," he announced.
+
+"I know you by sight," said Locke. "Sit down, Mr. Garwood."
+
+Garwood sat down and looked at the lawyer from narrowed eyes. His face
+was an inscrutable mask. "You have made me a defendant in litigation of
+yours," he said bluntly. "Why?"
+
+"Because I believe you are financing the Central Lumber Company."
+
+"Can you prove that?" Garwood asked.
+
+"I think so; at least I can put it up to you to disprove it."
+
+"Suppose I am financing it," said Garwood after a pause. "Suppose this
+man-of-straw, Dingle, gets a judgment and his paltry damages are
+paid--what then?"
+
+"Then he should be satisfied," said Locke.
+
+Garwood frowned impatiently. "You are a clever man, Locke. Give me
+credit for average intelligence, please."
+
+"Certainly--for much more than the average, Mr. Garwood."
+
+"Very good. Now I am going to talk plainly. You are promoting this
+litigation to form a groundwork for more. If you find what you hope to
+find, you will bring an action against myself and others."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I don't want that action brought."
+
+Locke smiled.
+
+"Understand me, I am not afraid of it; but it might disarrange some of
+my plans. Now, a certain offer has been made to you. You refused it.
+Wasn't it big enough?"
+
+"No."
+
+"In the not improbable event of the fusion of the Peninsular with the
+O. & N.," said Garwood slowly, "you might be offered the post of counsel
+for the amalgamated road."
+
+"I should refuse that also, for the same reason."
+
+Garwood threw himself back in his chair.
+
+"Then what _do_ you want?"
+
+"Several things," said Locke. "I want a fair deal for my clients, Crooks
+and Kent. I want damages for the outrageous freight rate you made for
+their injury. They must have cars, hereafter, when they want them. The
+political ukase forbidding purchases from them must be withdrawn, and
+the markets must be thrown open to them again. The crooked system of
+double-check tenders for timber limits must be altered. And generally
+you must stop hammering these men and using your influence against
+them."
+
+Garwood waved an impatient hand. "We are not discussing these things
+now. Leave them aside. What do you want for yourself?"
+
+"They are not to be left aside. My clients will pay my fees. I can't
+accept anything from you as matters stand."
+
+Garwood stared incredulously. "I thought I was dealing with a lawyer,"
+said he.
+
+"You will be absolutely certain of that in a very short time," Locke
+retorted bitingly.
+
+Garwood saw his own mistake immediately. You may make an amusing pun on
+a man's name or gently insinuate that the majority of the members of the
+profession to which he belongs are unblushing rascals, and the man may
+smile: but in his heart he feels like killing you. And so Garwood, who
+desired to come to terms with Locke if possible, apologized. The lawyer
+accepted the apology coldly and waited.
+
+"Your demands for your clients are out of the question," Garwood resumed
+positively. "We need not discuss them at all. I came here to make an
+arrangement with you. I have made you an offer which most men would snap
+at. I ask you again what you want?"
+
+"I have told you," Locke replied. "I am bound to my clients. That is
+absolute and final. If you will not recognize their claims I will
+proceed with the Dingle action and follow it by another, as you infer."
+
+"I dislike to upset your carefully arranged plans," said Garwood, "but
+Dingle will come to you to-morrow, pay your fees, and instruct you to
+discontinue the action."
+
+"What?" cried Locke, shaken out of his usual calm. If this were true the
+enemy had again executed a masterly retreat. It annoyed him exceedingly
+to be blocked twice by the same trick, although he did not see how he
+could have helped it.
+
+"As I told you, we don't want litigation just now," said Garwood.
+"Without admitting Dingle's claim at all, we considered a settlement the
+easiest way."
+
+"No doubt," said Locke dryly. "Well, you won't be able to buy off the
+next action. I'll take care of that."
+
+"You persist in your refusal to make terms?"
+
+"That is a very cool way of putting it," said Locke. "I tell you now,
+Garwood, I'm going after you, and when I get you I'll nail your hide to
+the sunny side of the barn."
+
+Garwood rose and shook a threatening forefinger at the lawyer.
+"Remember, if you make trouble for me I'll smash your business. Perhaps
+you don't think I can. You'll see. Inside a year you won't have a case
+in any court."
+
+"You own a couple of judges, don't you?" said Locke cheerfully. "A nice
+pair they are, too. You think my clients will get the worst of it from
+them. Of course they will, but I appeal most of their decisions now. You
+can injure me to some extent, but not as much as you think. Go to it,
+Garwood. When I get through with you you'll be a discredited man."
+
+On the whole he considered that he had broken even with the railway
+magnate. The settlement of the Dingle action was a confession of
+weakness. When that individual made an apologetic appearance the next
+day, Locke turned his anger loose and almost kicked him out of the
+office. Then he sat down and did some really first-class thinking,
+marshalling all the facts he had, drawing deductions, sorting and
+arranging, and finally he decided that he had a _prima facie_ case.
+
+Thereupon he brought action against everybody concerned, directly or
+remotely, in the assault on the business of Kent and Crooks.
+
+Meanwhile Joe Kent was impatient to get back to the woods, but certain
+business held him. A year before he would have been quite content to
+pass his evenings at the club, with cards, billiards and the like. Now
+these seemed strangely futile and inadequate, as did the current
+conversation of the young men about town. It all struck him as not worth
+while. He longed for the little log shack with the dully glowing stove
+within, the winter storm without, and the taciturn MacNutt. As he lay
+back with a cigar in a luxurious chair he could see the bunk-house
+filled with the smoke of unspeakable tobacco, the unkempt,
+weather-hardened men on the "deacon seat," and the festoons of garments
+drying above the stove. The smart slang and mild swearing disgusted him.
+He preferred the ribald, man's-size oaths of the shanty men, the
+crackling blasphemies which embellished their speech. In fact, though he
+did not know it, he was passing through a process of change; shedding
+the lightness of extreme youth, hardening a little, coming to the
+stature of a man.
+
+Because the club bored him he took to spending his evenings with Jack
+Crooks. There was a cosey little room with an open fire, a piano, big,
+worn, friendly easy-chairs, and an atmosphere of home. This was Jack's
+particular den, to which none but her best friends penetrated. Sometimes
+Crooks would drop in, smoke a cigar, and spin yarns of logging in the
+early days; but more often they were alone. Jack played well and sang
+better; but she made no pretence of entertaining Joe. He was welcome; he
+might sit and smoke and say nothing if he chose. She sang or played or
+read or created mysterious things with linen, needle, and silk, as if he
+were one of the household. On the other hand, if he preferred to talk
+she was usually equally willing.
+
+One night she sat at the piano and picked minor chords. Joe, sunk in the
+chair he particularly affected, scowled at the fire and thought of logs.
+Lately he had thought of little else. He wanted to get back and see the
+work actually going on. Jack half turned and looked at him.
+
+"He needs cheering up," she said. "He's thinking of her still."
+
+"What's that?" said Joe with a start.
+
+"'Tis better to have loved and lost," she quoted mockingly. "Brace up,
+Joe." She often teased him about his temporary infatuation with Edith
+Garwood, knowing that it did not hurt. She swung about to the piano and
+her fingers crashed into the keys:
+
+    "Whin _I_ was jilted by Peggy Flynn,
+    The heart iv me broke, an' I tuk to gin;
+    An' I soaked me sowl both night an' day
+    While worrukin' on the railwa-a-a-y.
+
+    "Arrah-me, arrah-me, arrah-me, ay,
+    Arrah-me, arrah-me, arrah-me, ay,
+    Oh, sorra th' cint I saved of me pay
+    While worrukin' on the railwa-a-a-y.
+
+    "But in eighteen hundred an' seventy-three
+    I went an' married Biddy McGee,
+    An' th' foine ould woman she was to me
+    While worrukin' on the railwa-a-a-y.
+
+"We'll omit the next thirteen stanzas, Joe. See what your fate might
+have been:
+
+    "In eighteen hundred an' eighty-siven,
+    Poor Biddy died an' she went to Hiven;
+    An' I was left wid kids eliven
+    Worrukin' on the railwa-a-a-y."
+
+"Great Scott, Jack, where did you pick up that old come-all-ye?" Joe
+interrupted. "You sing it like an Irish section hand."
+
+"I learned it from one. He was a good friend of mine. Do you want the
+rest of the verses? There are about seventy, I think."
+
+"If Biddy is in Heaven, we'll let it go at that," laughed Joe. "Why
+don't you sing something touching and sentimental, appropriate to my
+bereaved condition? By the way, Jack, where is Drew keeping himself? I
+haven't seen him lately. I was just beginning to feel _de trop_ when he
+called."
+
+This was carrying the war into Jack's territory. Young Drew had paid her
+very pronounced, attentions and had recently discontinued them, for a
+reason which only she and himself knew. The colour flamed into her
+cheeks.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense! There was no reason why you should feel that way."
+
+"Hello! You're blushing!" Joe commented.
+
+"I'm not; it's the fire."
+
+"Is it?" said Joe sceptically. For the first time in his life he
+regarded her carefully. He had been used to taking Jack for granted, and
+had paid no more attention to her looks than the average brother pays to
+those of a younger sister. Now it struck him that she was pretty. Her
+hair was abundant, brown and glossy; her eyes and skin were clean and
+clear and healthy, and her small, shapely head was carried with regal
+uprightness; she was slim and straight and strong and capable. In fact
+she suddenly dawned upon his accustomed vision in an entirely new way.
+
+"Jack," said he, and his surprise showed in his voice, "upon my word I
+believe you are rather good looking!"
+
+She rose and swept him a mock curtsey.
+
+"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
+
+"Nice eyes, plenty of hair, and a good figure," Joe drawled. "I don't
+blame Drew at all."
+
+"Now, Joe, quit it. I don't care to be jollied about that."
+
+"What's sauce for the gander is ditto for the goose. I wasn't aware that
+there was anything serious----"
+
+"There isn't," Jack snapped, "and there never will be. Will you stop
+when I ask you to?"
+
+Joe dropped the subject, but eyed her curiously.
+
+"I take it back," said he after an interval of silence. "Jack, you're
+absolutely pretty. What have you been doing to yourself?"
+
+"I always was pretty," Jack declared. "The trouble was with your powers
+of observation."
+
+"Likely," said Joe, and fell silent again. Jack picked up a book and
+began to read. He watched her idly, pleased by the picture she
+presented. She fidgeted beneath his gaze.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't stare at me as if I were a recently discovered
+species," she exclaimed at last.
+
+"Now I wonder," said he, "why I never noticed it before."
+
+Jack dimpled charmingly. "I want to tell you, young man, that you are
+singularly dense. Even dad knows what I look like."
+
+"So do I--now," said Joe. "I suppose I've been thinking of you as a
+little girl. Great Scott!" He shook his head, puzzled by his blindness.
+Jack's eyes twinkled and her dimples became pronounced. She was enjoying
+his discovery greatly. Presently she said:
+
+"When do you go up to Wind River?"
+
+"As soon as I can--in a day or two, anyway." A slight frown drew lines
+between his eyes. "I ought to be up there now. Not that I can tell
+MacNutt anything about his job, of course. But there's that outfit of
+McCane's! No telling what they will be up to next. And then I ought to
+go round to the other camps and see how there're making it. We want a
+main drive of twenty-five or thirty million this year. Got to have it.
+Yes, I ought to be on the spot."
+
+He was talking to himself rather than to her, and the boyishness had
+vanished from his voice and manner. He was the man of affairs, the
+executive head, thinking, planning, immersed in his business.
+
+Jack was quick to recognize the change.
+
+"You need the logs, don't you, Joe?"
+
+"I'll smash without 'em, sure. Twenty million feet delivered at Wismer &
+Holden's booms by July 1st. Not a day later. Then I can lift the notes,
+square my overdraft, and meet the mortgage payments. If I don't--well,
+my credit is strained pretty badly now."
+
+"You'll pull through, Joe. I know you will." Her hand fell on his
+shoulder. He looked up abstractedly and saw her standing beside him.
+Mechanically his hand reached up and closed on hers. At the contact he
+felt a little thrill, and something stirred within him. It was the first
+time he had touched her hand since childhood, save in greeting or
+farewell. And her touch was the first of understanding human sympathy he
+had had since called upon to hoe his own row. He vibrated to it
+responsively.
+
+"You're a good little sport, Jack," he said gratefully and pressed her
+hand.
+
+There was a discreet knock at the door.
+
+"Telegram for you, Joe," said Jack, taking the yellow envelope from the
+maid.
+
+"May I?" said Joe, and tore it open. His face became a thunder-cloud. He
+bit back the words that rose to his lips.
+
+"What is it?" asked Jack anxiously. "Not bad news?"
+
+"Couldn't be much worse." He held out the slip of yellow paper. She
+read:
+
+    Camp burnt out. McCane's crew. Wire instructions.
+                                                        --MacNutt.
+
+Joe tore a leaf from a note-book and scribbled:
+
+    Hold men together and build new camp. Rushing supplies.
+    Coming at once.
+
+"I've got to have that camp going again in a week," said he grimly.
+"That means hustle. I shan't see you again before I go up."
+
+"You're going yourself," she said with approval. "Good boy, Joe. Oh, how
+I wish I were a man!"
+
+"If you were I'd have you for a partner," he declared. "But I'm glad
+you're not. I like you best this way. Good-bye, little girl, and thanks
+for many pleasant evenings. I'll tell you all about the war when I come
+back."
+
+In spite of Joe's misfortune Jack went upstairs that night with a light
+step, humming the refrain of the last stanza of her father's favourite
+song:
+
+    When the drive comes dow-un, when the jam comes down.
+    What makes yeez lads so wishful-eyed as we draw near to town?
+    Other eyes is soft an' bright like the stars of a June night--
+    Wives an' sweethearts--prayin' waitin'--as we drive the river down.
+      (Oh, ye divils!)
+    God bless the eyes that shine for us when we boil into town.
+
+"Other eyes is soft an' bright;" she crooned to her white-clad
+reflection as she braided the great coils of glossy brown hair. "To
+think Joe has just found out that _my_ eyes are bright. Charlie Drew
+knew it long ago. How stupid some boys are!"
+
+Meanwhile Wright and Locke were swearing angrily as they read the
+telegram, while Joe told them of his determination to rebuild at once.
+
+"That's the talk," said Wright.
+
+"I'll sue Clancy Brothers at once," said Locke. "I believe they can be
+made liable. Anyway, it will have a good moral effect. And when you get
+the names of the men who did the burning I'll have them arrested."
+
+"I don't think I'll bother about law," said Joe.
+
+Locke stared at him in surprise.
+
+"Because the way I feel now," young Kent continued, "I think as soon as
+I can spare the time I'll take a bunch of bully-boys and run them out of
+the woods."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+At Maguire's station Joe disembarked from the crawling, snow-smothered
+train, consisting of engine, baggage car, and day coach. The platform
+was covered with boxes, sacks, and bundles; and men were piling them on
+bobsleighs. These were shanty boys from the Wind River camp.
+
+Haggarty, one eye blackened and almost closed, growled a hearty welcome
+to the young boss. The latter, looking around, observed other marks of
+combat. He asked the cause.
+
+"It was like this, Mr. Kent," Haggarty replied. "The camp was burnt at
+noon. Half a dozen men wid flour sacks over their heads ran in on the
+cook, the cookee bein' out on the job. They took him out an' fired the
+camp. Then they tied him, covered him wid blankets so he wouldn't
+freeze, an' lit out. The cookee come back an' found him, an' brought us
+word. MacNutt an' what men he could hold hit for camp to see what could
+be done, but the rest of us was too mad, an' we boiled across to do up
+McCane's crew. It was a good fight, but they was too many for us." He
+swore with deep feeling. "Just wait. The woods ain't big enough to hold
+us both after this."
+
+"Are all the men at camp now?"
+
+"All but what's down wid the teams. There was tents an' stoves went up
+yesterday. Before that she was a cold rig for sleepin' and eatin'. Now
+it's better."
+
+On the long sleigh drive Joe got details, but the main facts were as
+stated by Haggarty. None of the incendiaries had been recognized, but
+nobody doubted that they were of Rough Shan's crew.
+
+Joe found a dozen tents pitched around the clearing, well banked with
+snow and floored with boughs. New buildings were going up as fast as the
+logs could be hauled out of the woods and laid in place. The work of
+logging was temporarily suspended. MacNutt, grim and in a poisonous
+temper, drove the willing crew from streak of dawn till fall of dark.
+
+"You'll blame me, like enough," said he. "I blame myself. I've seen the
+like before, and I knew McCane, curse him! If you say so I'm ready to
+quit, but I'll get even with him for this."
+
+"I don't blame you a bit," Joe told him. "It can't be helped. We must
+get the camp and the cutting going on again, and then we'll square up
+with McCane when we have time."
+
+As the buildings neared completion new men began to arrive--strapping,
+aggressive-eyed fellows who viewed each other and the Wind River men
+very much after the manner of strange mastiffs. These were draughts from
+Tobin's and Deever's camps--the "hardest" men from each, picked by the
+foremen by Joe's instructions and sent on to him. In return, Joe
+instructed some of his original crew to report to Deever and Tobin. Thus
+he found himself with a crew of "bully-boys" who feared nothing on earth
+and were simply spoiling for a fight.
+
+In the completed bunk-house a huge, bearded, riverman leaped high,
+cracked his heels together and whooped.
+
+"Is it Rough Shan McCane?" he yelled as he hit the floor. "Is it him wid
+his raft of Callahans an' Red McDougals an' scrapin's of hell wud burn a
+Kent camp?" His blasphemy was original and unreproducible. "By the
+Mortal! The moon's high, an' the travellin's good. Come on, bullies,
+we'll burn them out of their bunks this night!"
+
+The yell that arose reached the ears of Joe and MacNutt. The foreman
+looked at his employer.
+
+"What's up?" the latter asked.
+
+"If you want McCane's camp burnt and his gang run out of the woods all
+you have to do is to sit here and smoke your pipe," MacNutt replied.
+
+Joe seized his cap and opened the door just as the crew began to pour
+out of the bunk-house hastily pulling on garments as they came. He
+dashed across the open space and met the leaders.
+
+"What's the excitement, boys?" he asked.
+
+"We're going to burn out Rough Shan for you," answered the big riverman.
+
+"Oh, you are!" said Joe. "Well, Cooley, I don't remember asking you to
+do anything of the kind."
+
+"Sure, you don't need to ask it, Mr. Kent," returned big Cooley with
+what he intended for an amiable, protective smile. "The boys will see to
+it for you." A yell of fierce affirmation arose behind him. "You go to
+bed an' know nawthin' about it."
+
+"Are you giving me orders, Cooley?" Joe demanded in biting tones. "Let
+me tell you this," he cried. "Not a man goes out to-night. When I want
+McCane's camp burnt I'll tell you. Yes, and I'll set fire to it myself.
+That's the kind of fellow I am. I won't hide behind you boys. Now get
+back, every man of you!"
+
+They hesitated and murmured. Those behind pushed forward. The young man
+was showing unsuspected qualities. Joe stepped up close.
+
+"Do you men think I'll let you run this camp?" he demanded. "You're here
+to cut logs when I tell you and not to fight till I tell you. Get it
+through you now and get it clear that I'm Boss. _Boss_, do you
+understand? BOSS! What I say goes, day or night." He drew a furrow in
+the snow with his moccasin. "The man who crosses that line gets his
+time. If you all cross you all get it. If half of you cross you all get
+it, and I'll shut down this camp. That's what Clancy and McCane are
+trying to make me do. If you want to help them and smash me--cross the
+line!"
+
+[Illustration: "There's the line. Cross it to-night or try to scrap
+with McCane's crew before I tell you to, and I'll shut down"]
+
+His voice rang clear as a trumpet in the frozen stillness. By accident,
+almost, he had chosen the right course. Pleadings alone would have been
+in vain; orders alone would have been useless; the placing of this
+responsibility upon the men turned the scale.
+
+"Aw, now, Mr. Kent," said big Cooley coaxingly, "what harm to put the
+run on them high-bankers and burn their dirty camp?"
+
+Joe eyed him coldly. "I won't argue," he said. "There's the line. Cross
+it to-night or try to scrap with McCane's crew before I tell you to, and
+I'll shut down. I mean it, boys. Goodnight."
+
+He turned and walked to the foreman's quarters without looking back.
+Behind him the men stood huddled foolishly. Then, one by one, they
+straggled back to the bunk-house. From that moment Joe Kent stood with
+his crew on his own feet. He was _boss_.
+
+The following night, when he came in with the crew from the woods, he
+was served with an injunction restraining him, his servants, agents, or
+workmen, from entering upon the limits of Clancy Brothers, or injuring
+or interfering with their property or employees.
+
+"Wouldn't that jar a brick wall?" he commented to MacNutt. "They burn
+our camp and get an injunction against us. I half wish I had let the
+boys go over last night. Now, I suppose it would be contempt of court to
+cross their line."
+
+"Don't let that worry you," said the foreman grimly. "Orders of court is
+a poor rig in the woods. All you've got to do is to give me and the boys
+our time and hire us again when we've cleaned 'em out."
+
+But this beautifully simple evasion of the law did not appeal to Joe. He
+wanted logs, and had no time to waste in satisfying his grudges. The
+weather, which had been ideal for logging, changed and choking snows
+fell. The road had to be ploughed out time after time. The hauling was
+heavy and slow. Then came a great thaw. The horses balled and stumbled
+and caulked themselves. The huge sleighs made pitch-holes in the road.
+Altogether it was discouraging. Finally the wind switched into the north
+and the weather hardened. The mercury dropped to zero at night and rose
+to twenty at noon. The road became icy and the runners slid easily in
+the ruts. Once more the teamsters took full loads and the choked
+skidways found relief.
+
+The men, denied the innocent recreation of burning out the other camp,
+worked with vim. The word went around that Kent needed the logs--needed
+them, in fact, badly. That was enough. Haggarty, Regan, big Cooley, and
+half a dozen others set the pace, and the rest of the crew kept up to
+it. They were at work by the first light, and only darkness forced a
+halt. The nooning was cut short voluntarily, the men contenting
+themselves with a few whiffs of tobacco and resuming work without a word
+from MacNutt.
+
+Joe felt the change. There was a subtle difference in the ring of the
+axes and the vibration of the saws. They sang a faster song and held a
+truer note. As he went over the work from man to man with a joke or a
+pleasant word--criticisms, instructions, and suggestions he still wisely
+left to MacNutt--he was met by cheerful grins. These rough, virile men
+of the woods and the river recognized a kinship with the young boss;
+they felt in him their own fearlessness and willingness to take a
+chance, and a strength of purpose and of character unmarred by their
+vices.
+
+Since the rebuilding of the camp they had seen little of McCane's crew.
+Curses and threats had been exchanged between individuals across the
+deadline, but on the whole Peace brooded dove-like and triumphant, as it
+is accustomed to brood above armed states, and the manner of its sudden,
+startled flight was thus:
+
+Joe and MacNutt, going through a slashing at the farthest corner of the
+limit which they had reached in the cutting, inadvertently trespassed
+upon Clancys'; thereby becoming technically guilty of contempt of court.
+As they ploughed through the deep snow two men came into view from
+behind the fallen tops. One of these was Rough Shan; the other, to Joe's
+astonishment, proved to be Finn Clancy.
+
+The two advanced. Joe and MacNutt stopped. Clancy opened the ball with
+an explosion of profanity.
+
+"Are ye lookin' for more logs to steal?" he observed in conclusion.
+"Keep to yer own limit, ye young thief, or I'll break yer neck!"
+
+"You've reached _your_ limit!" said Joe through his teeth, and put his
+whole weight behind his left fist.
+
+Clancy went back in the snow as if he had been hit by an axe. MacNutt,
+like a dog unleashed, went for McCane. The latter, nothing loath, met
+him half-way. Clancy staggered up out of the snow spitting blood and
+broken dentistry, and charged Joe like a bull moose, roaring
+inarticulate invective. Joe smashed him right and left, took a counter
+in the face that made his brain swim, was caught in the big man's arms
+and fought himself free by straight, hard body punches. Two of McCane's
+men ran into the slashing. At sight of the fight they raised a yell and
+charged.
+
+This yell reached the ears of Kent's teamster, little Narcisse
+Laviolette, bending to clutch the butt of a log with a swamp-hook. He
+straightened himself at the sound.
+
+"Bagosh, some feller mak' de beeg row!" he muttered. "I see heem dat
+boss an' MacNutt pass heemself dat way. Mo' Gee! mebbe dey ron into
+plaintee troub'." He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Ya-hoo-ee!
+Ya-hoo-ee!" he shouted in a far-carrying cry. Leaving his team to their
+own devices he turned and ran, shouting at every step.
+
+The buoyant cry went echoing through the forest. It spelt trouble. Man
+after man left saw in the cut and axe in the limb and ran toward it.
+
+Laviolette bounded into the slashing. In the middle were half a dozen
+men, fighting fiercely. On the other side, the woods poured forth a
+yelling crew. Laviolette did not hesitate. He hurled himself through the
+snow in great leaps, and plunged into the thick of the fray. His heavy
+"snag-proof" gum boot crashed into one man's face with all the power of
+his leg-muscles behind it. He sprang on the back of another and bore him
+to the ground, gripping one ear and tearing it half away from the head,
+for little Laviolette was a dirty fighter. Then he was kicked in the
+throat and stamped into the snow.
+
+Clancy was getting the worst of it from Joe, and MacNutt was holding his
+own with Rough Shan. The first newcomers turned the scale. Laviolette
+almost evened it again. Then all were swamped by the rush of McCane's
+crew. Kent and MacNutt went down fighting gamely, and were kicked and
+hammered until the world swam before their outraged senses.
+
+At this stage of the combat Kent's crew caught sight of the enemy. The
+roar that went up from them was heard even at the rollways. They charged
+home. A wave of fighting shantymen surged over Joe, and he raised
+himself and staggered up as he had often done from the bottom of a
+scrimmage. Big Cooley raged in the van of the fight, spouting
+blasphemies and swinging his enormous fists right and left. Beside him
+Haggarty and Regan found vent for their hatred of the other camp. The
+fight spread out into a number of single combats, and it was then that
+Kent's picked fighters proved their quality. Man after man of McCane's
+gang had enough, quit, and ran. The rout became general.
+
+"Burn them out!" was the cry.
+
+Joe turned to MacNutt, who stood beside him gasping for breath and
+swaying. "Shall I stop them?" he said.
+
+"Stop nothing!" said the foreman. "If I get there in time I'll touch her
+off myself!"
+
+He ran twenty yards and fell in the snow. For the first time in his life
+he had fainted. Joe caught Laviolette darting past and held him.
+
+"Get a sleigh and haul him into camp," he ordered. Laviolette, mad with
+excitement, tried to break away. Joe gripped the teamster by the throat
+and shook him violently, despite a grinding pain in his side which made
+the forest swim. "Do you hear me, damn you?" he thundered. "A sleigh, I
+say, or----" His fingers tightened.
+
+"Sure, sure," croaked the teamster. "_Oui, m'sieu!_ Mo' Gee, I choke!"
+
+Joe released him and bent over MacNutt. Suddenly the world grew black
+and he pitched down head foremost beside his foreman. Thus neither of
+them saw the finish of McCane's camp.
+
+The gang roared through the woods and stormed the camp like demons.
+McCane's cook, game enough, grabbed an axe. Instantly an iron pot,
+thrown with full force, sailed through the air and broke his right arm.
+The cookee emerged from the bunk-house with a gun in his hand and found
+himself face to face with Cooley. He levelled the weapon. The big
+riverman grinned at him.
+
+"Put it down an' ye won't be hurted," he said. "Shoot, an' the boys will
+burn ye alive."
+
+There was no mistaking the temper of the gang, and the cookee wisely did
+as he was told. The men raided the van and broached a barrel of kerosene
+oil. They threw the contents by the pailful inside the buildings.
+
+"Here she goes to hell!" shouted big Cooley as he struck a match.
+
+The light blue flames ran up the oil-soaked wood and took hold. It began
+to crackle and then to roar. Outside, Kent's crew danced with glee. Some
+one found a keg of whiskey. Regan smashed in one end and upset the
+contents on the snow.
+
+"No booze," said he. "This is no work to get drunk at."
+
+From a neighbouring knoll most of McCane's crew looked on with curses
+loud and deep, but they had no collective stomach for further warfare
+just then. When nothing but charred end-logs and glowing coals remained,
+Kent's men tramped off through the deep snows shouting gibes and taunts
+at their enemies. Their vengeance had been ample and satisfying.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+MacNutt was able to boss the job on the following day; but Kent was less
+fortunate. Pains in side and head attacked him, what of the pounding he
+had received. After waiting a couple of days for them to disappear, with
+a healthy man's confidence in his own recuperative powers, he was driven
+back to Maguire's, where he took train for Falls City. There his injured
+side was strapped and he was ordered complete rest and quiet.
+
+Early in the winter, because he was alone in the world, he had leased
+his house and moved to an apartment building. This now seemed to him
+about as cheerful as a prison. He longed for human companionship of some
+sort, and he would have disobeyed his doctor's orders and gone out in
+search of it, but for the fact that his face, covered with bruises,
+would have attracted attention. But in the afternoon of his first day's
+confinement came William Crooks and Miss Jack.
+
+That young lady took charge of the situation with calm capacity.
+
+"Now, Joe," she said, "you're coming up to the house until you're well.
+Doctor's orders. So tell me what things you want and I'll pack them for
+you."
+
+"I couldn't think of troubling you," he protested. "I'm not sick, you
+know. Just a cracked rib and a jolt on the head. I feel all right,
+really."
+
+"You do as you're told," she replied. She began to pull out the drawers
+of his chiffonier. "What a mess your things are in! Nothing where it
+ought to be. Where _do_ you keep your pajamas? Dad, look in that closet
+for his suit case."
+
+"This is kidnapping," said Joe.
+
+"Call it what you like," chuckled Crooks. "Do as Jack tells you and quit
+kicking. _I_ have to." He brought out a suit case and a deep club bag.
+"Fire in what you think he needs, Jack."
+
+Joe watched uneasily her selection of articles supposedly indispensable
+to his comfort, and gave in.
+
+"Hold on, Jack, or else get a trunk. Let me show you, if I have to go."
+
+"That's better," said Crooks. He paused and regarded Joe critically.
+"Well, you did get a pounding. Did the whole crew jump on your face?"
+
+"It felt that way at the time," said Joe, "but you ought to see Finn
+Clancy's." He told the story of the fight briefly, making little mention
+of his own part in it. "So you see I was out of the fun at the wind-up,"
+he concluded.
+
+"Too bad," said Crooks with a sympathy born of personal experience.
+"There will be trouble over that, though. They'll call it contempt of
+court, and malicious destruction, and the Lord and Locke only know what
+else."
+
+This prophecy proved to be correct. As soon as he could be located
+writs, summonses, and orders to appear and show cause showered on Joe.
+These passed on to Locke, who secured delay by physicians' certificates,
+affidavits, motions--all the methods by which the experienced attorney
+can clog the slowly moving wheels of the law.
+
+Meanwhile Joe nursed his knitting ribs and rested completely. Jack
+established an invisible wall about him through which no business
+affairs penetrated.
+
+"Dad and Mr. Wright can look after things for a week or two," she
+explained. "Mr. Locke says you needn't worry about law matters.
+Everything at the camps is going well. So, young man, you just make
+yourself comfortable and be lazy. That's your job for the present."
+
+When a few days had accustomed him to inaction it proved to be a very
+pleasant job. He developed an unsuspected capacity for sleep. This meant
+the restorage of his nerve cells. The pains in his head lessened and
+ceased, and the bruised flesh gradually assumed a normal hue.
+
+His favourite place was Jack's den. There was a bow window with a south
+exposure, and in the recess stood a huge easy-chair. Joe lay in it and
+absorbed sunshine, for the days were warming and lengthening, and stared
+up into the blue sky dotted with little white-wool clouds, or watched
+Jack, who had made the den her workroom. He found the latter pursuit the
+more entertaining.
+
+Jack affected white, with a superb disregard of laundry bills. It set
+off her lithe, straight figure, the small uplifted head with the
+abundant coils of dark hair, and the pretty piquant face with the firm
+yet tender mouth. From top to toe she was spotless and neat and trim and
+dainty. Her conversation was a tonic in itself. She was direct of
+speech, frank, and often slangy when slang best expressed her meaning.
+There were many odd "characters" dependent upon the open-handed bounty
+of William Crooks, and from them she had heard strange philosophies born
+of twisted lives, odd expressions which occasionally crept into her
+speech, and scraps of forgotten song. She had listened by the hour to
+old Micky Keeliher who tended the garden; to the widowed Mrs. Quilty who
+came once a week to do the washing; to crippled Angus McDougal, once a
+mighty riverman, whose strength had departed, and to a dozen others. Not
+one of them but would have died for William Crooks's daughter. To her
+they sang the songs of their youth in cracked, quavering voices; for her
+they unlocked the storehouses of their experience and gave of it freely.
+She absorbed their songs, their sayings, their tales; and as nearly as
+her youth would permit she understood their viewpoint of life.
+
+Joe, buried in his chosen chair, listened to the queer tunes she
+lilted--tunes which had stirred the hearts of by-gone generations in
+other lands--and by turns stared at the bright out-of-doors and slept.
+And Jack, on her part, felt a strange happiness, as if the room held all
+that was best and most to be desired. She did not analyze the feeling;
+she was content that it was hers. Bending over her sewing one bright
+afternoon during the last days of Joe's convalescence she crooned:
+
+    "Is it far away ye're goin', Danny, dear?
+    Is it lavin' me ye arre, widout a tear?
+      Sure the ship's white sails is swellin',
+      But it's this to ye I'm tellin'--
+    Ye shall love an' seek me out widin the year,
+
+    "By the spell that's laid upon ye ye shall come agin to me,
+    The dear, bould, handsome head of ye shall drop upon me knee.
+      While ye sleep or while ye wake,
+      It's the heart of ye shall ache
+    Wid love o' that poor weepin' gyurl ye left beside the sea!"
+
+"That's a cheerful song," said Joe ironically from his chair. "Did he
+come back?"
+
+"Of course," laughed Jack. "Unfortunately, he died as his head touched
+her knee, and naturally she was inconsolable. Like to hear her lament?"
+She drew her face into lines of sorrow and threw back her head in a
+preliminary wail, as a dog howls.
+
+    E-e-yah-h-h! Oh, why did he die?
+    Oh-h-h-h, why did----
+
+"Stop!" cried Joe. "Look here, Jack, remember I'm an interesting
+invalid. I want something cheerful."
+
+"Well, that _is_ comparatively cheerful. Now, if I sang you a real
+Hielan' lament----"
+
+"Don't you dare," Joe interrupted. "I am still far from strong."
+
+Jack laughed. "You smoked yesterday. Doctor Eberts says that a man who
+can enjoy a smoke is well enough to work."
+
+"Good for the doc!" cried Joe. "Me for the office and then back to the
+woods. Hooray!"
+
+"Not for a day or two," said Jack. "Things are going all right. You keep
+quiet."
+
+Joe sank back in his chair. "I suppose so, but--well, I want to look
+after them myself." Far off against the blue sky a wedge of black specks
+bored through space, swinging off beyond the limits of the town. "Look,
+Jack! The first geese going north. That means the end of winter and open
+water. We'll start our drives in a few weeks."
+
+"Yes, Joe." She perched on the arm of the big chair and stared after the
+birds, her face clouded with discontent. "That's life, and you can live
+it. Oh, heavens! Why wasn't I a boy? I'd love it so. I want to go up to
+the camps and see the rollways broken out and the banking grounds
+emptied. I want to wear spiked boots and ride a stick in white water and
+use a peavey. I want to come back to the wanegan at night, and eat and
+dry off by a big fire and sleep out of doors. I want--don't you dare to
+laugh at me, Joe Kent--I want to come into town with the bully-boys,
+with a hat pulled down over my eyes and a cigar in my mouth sticking up
+at an angle, and sing 'Jimmy Judge,' and 'From Far Temiskamang.' I
+want"--she faced him defiantly--"I want to ride up town in a hack--_with
+my feet out of the window!_ Yes, I do. And now tell me you are shocked."
+
+"I might be if I saw you do it," said Joe. "I've felt the same way
+myself--like breaking loose from everything. If you were a man you
+wouldn't, though. Only the shanty boys tear off these stunts. _We_
+can't."
+
+"All very well for you to talk--you could if you wanted to," said Jack
+disconsolately. "I'm a girl. I can't even go up to the camps unless dad
+takes me." She voiced her grievance again. "I wish I had been a boy."
+
+She turned to the window and stared out. Joe rose and stood beside her,
+looking down at the burnished brown of her hair and the soft profile of
+her cheek. Once more the nameless thrill he had felt before when he had
+touched her hand possessed him. Hesitatingly, awkwardly, impelled by
+something which was not of his own volition, he put his arm around her.
+Instantly, as if a curtain had been rolled up--as if a screen had been
+withdrawn--he saw his own mind clearly.
+
+Why, he loved her!
+
+It came to him with a shock of utter amazement. Little Jack Crooks, his
+playmate, his friend, his confidant, the girl he had looked at so long
+with unseeing eyes--she, she was the only woman in the wide world for
+him. She had always been the only one. Edith Garwood? Pshaw! How could
+he have been so blind? Not all her radiant beauty and deceptive
+sweetness could compare with straight, loyal, little Jack, his chum and
+his love.
+
+She seemed unconscious of his arm until he spoke her name. Then she
+turned her head slowly and her dark eyes looked directly into his. What
+she saw there brought the red to her cheeks in a wave. Up and up the
+telltale crimson tide leaped to her brow, to the roots of her glossy
+brown hair, but her gaze did not waver.
+
+"Should you, Joe?" she asked simply.
+
+Stumblingly, humbly he told her, and she listened, nestling in his arms
+as one who has found her own place. And so, when bluff old William
+Crooks came home, he found them sitting in the twilight, planning
+wonderful things. Joe put the situation simply.
+
+"Jack has consented to marry me, sir."
+
+William Crooks stared at him and then at his daughter.
+
+"Fact, dad," she confirmed.
+
+"Well, I'll be--" began Crooks out of his unbounded astonishment.
+
+She put her hand over his lips. "I hope not, dad."
+
+"Well, you take a man unawares," growled Crooks. "How long has this been
+going on?"
+
+"About two hours, I think," said Joe happily.
+
+"Oh," said Crooks; "I was afraid you had been holding out on me. You're
+sure about this, I suppose?"
+
+They were very sure.
+
+"Well," said Crooks judicially, "I don't know any young fellow I'd
+rather give Jack to, Joe. Shake hands, you robber. But, mind you, you've
+got to put your business on its feet before you marry her."
+
+"I'll do it," Joe promised.
+
+"Of course he will," Jack asserted with perfect faith.
+
+Bill Crooks regarded them wistfully. In their youth and hope he saw his
+own. He thought of a far day when he and a girl had faced the world
+together, determined to wring from it success. The success had come, but
+the woman of his heart no longer shared it with him. Suddenly he felt
+old and lonely. He roused himself with a sigh and a shake of his big
+shoulders. No one, not even his daughter, suspected old Bill Crooks of
+sentiment. His thoughts were his own.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Joe Kent tore himself away from his new happiness, visited Tobin's and
+Deever's camps, spent a few days at each, and wound up at Wind River.
+The banking grounds were full--great piles of timber stretching along
+the water's edge waiting the going of the ice. The winter roads were
+failing fast and the last logs were coming out the woods in half loads.
+Most of the hauling was done by night, for then the roads hardened with
+frost. By day the air was mild and the depth of snow sank sensibly. Then
+came the first rain of the season, destroying the roads utterly.
+
+All the men, save the driving crew, were paid off. Since a lumber camp
+is a self-contained community including a store or "van" at which the
+hands purchase most of their simple necessaries, paying off involves an
+adjustment of accounts, A lumber jack seldom keeps a record of his
+purchases, and is thus dependent upon the honesty of his employer's
+bookkeeping. The custom is to run rapidly over the account of each man
+in his presence. If he remembers the purchases and is satisfied, as he
+is in the majority of cases, well and good. If he does not remember or
+is not satisfied after reasonable explanation he is tendered a check and
+told to see a lawyer. But there have been logging firms who have robbed
+their men shamelessly.
+
+"Jack," one employer is alleged to have said, "you remember that pair of
+socks you got in December?"
+
+Jack, after an effort, remembered.
+
+"That's one pair," said the employer, and went on rapidly. "And you
+remember the pair you didn't get in January--that's two pairs." And Jack
+agreed. Keener men have been flimflammed by much the same formula.
+
+But, on the whole, the men get a square deal, few employers being small
+enough to charge excessive prices for supplies, much less to make
+fictitious entries against them. There was no dissatisfaction among
+Kent's men. Differences of opinion never reached the point of absolute
+assertion.
+
+"Well, Billy," MacNutt would say, "there's the entry in our books made
+at the time. If you say flat you didn't get the goods we'll let it go,
+because we know you're a straight man, and think you're right. But if
+you just say you don't remember, why, then, our books show we do."
+
+This unusual but effective system had been installed by William Kent and
+worked like a charm. Seldom did a man, having it put up to him in that
+way, flatly contradict the books. And then it prevented all friction.
+
+After the surplus men had been paid off, the weather hardened. A bitter
+wind held in the north by day; the nights were still, clear, and cold.
+Ice actually made and thickened in the river.
+
+It was unheard-of. Each morning the rivermen rose, cocked wise eyes at
+the sky, and cursed the weather. Each night they sat around the stove,
+for the cold was penetrating.
+
+"It's the qualified adjective moon," said Cooley. "The weather will
+break when she changes."
+
+"She'll break when she gets ready," said Jackson. "This will make a late
+drive."
+
+"But high water when it does come," said another.
+
+Joe Kent took to looking into the sleeping camp for an hour or so each
+night. He had brought a banjo with him, and he exhausted his song
+repertory. The men enjoyed it thoroughly. It was, perhaps, bad for
+discipline, but it developed a feeling of comradeship. His authority was
+not in danger, for they had seen him hold his own against the
+redoubtable Mike Callahan, who was a dangerous fighter; and he had also
+bested big Finn Clancy, who had whipped many a good man in his day.
+
+Suddenly the weather changed. One morning a southerly wind and a cloudy
+sky greeted them; by noon there was a warm rain slashing against the
+earth; at night mists and fog hung everywhere.
+
+"She breaks up this time," said Cooley, who was engaged in saturating
+his driving boots with oil and hot tallow, not with intent to keep his
+feet dry, but to preserve the leather.
+
+"An' time it is," said Regan, busy with a file at the inch spikes which
+studded the soles of his footgear. "She's a fortnight later nor she
+should be."
+
+This was so, but it had caused Joe little uneasiness, for his margin
+seemed ample. His plan was to drive the Wind River cut down the Wind to
+the Mattawagan. Tobin and Deever would drive down the Missabini to the
+latter stream. The drives would unite at McColl's Sney, where the main
+drive would be formed. Thence it would proceed down that great water
+artery past Falls City to Wismer & Holden's booms. It was all very
+simple--on paper.
+
+But it took a week for the ice to move in the Wind. The driving crew
+chafed and cursed, for they regarded Kent's interests as their own, and
+they longed to feel a rocking log beneath their feet once more. When the
+ice finally moved they attacked the rollways with fury, and the huge
+piles of great sticks cascaded thunderously into the water like huge
+amphibians. At that point the river was deep and had little current.
+Therefore the logs strung out slowly and in an orderly manner with a
+dignity befitting their weight and age.
+
+When the drive began to string with the slow current, MacNutt sent part
+of the crew downstream to keep the logs moving and prevent jams. The
+remainder divided and strung along either bank, releasing such sticks as
+grounded in the shallows or caught in the "sweepers" from the banks.
+
+Last of all came the "wanegan," also known as the "sweep." This was a
+long, heavy, flat bottomed scow, of primitive but enormously strong
+construction. It was the base of supplies for the driving crew. It held
+tents, provisions, clothing, and tools, and it was manned by the cook,
+cookees, and blacksmith. For propulsion it possessed long sweeps; but
+since it had merely to keep pace with the logs and the logs moved no
+faster than the current, these were used only for guidance. In slow
+water the life of its crew by day was one of dreamy, idyllic ease; but
+in fast water this condition was reversed. The scow was big, heavy, and
+unwieldly. It refused to be guided, checked or restrained; it bumped
+malevolently against boulders, grounded on sandbars, scraped its crew
+against overhanging limbs, and dragged them, cursing, into the water
+when they tried to line it down a fast, obstructed current.
+
+For the first few days they always endeavoured to control their craft;
+after that they let it go and trusted to luck, clinging perfunctorily to
+the sweeps and damning the grinning rivermen who shouted sarcastic
+comment and advice from the banks and solitary logs.
+
+At night the crew sought the wanegan and ate voraciously. They were
+always wet to the waist and often to the ears. They changed and dried
+their soaked clothing on pole racks by roaring fires, smoked, and slept
+in little tents pitched ready for them. Before the first light they had
+breakfasted, and they stepped into ice water in the gray dawn. But with
+it they were happy and contented, for the drive was the crowning glory
+of the year.
+
+The drive made average progress. There were small jams, easily broken,
+minor delays which always occur, but both MacNutt and Joe were pleased.
+
+"The late opening won't matter," said the former as they spread their
+blankets in the little wedge tent. "The head will hit the first dam
+to-morrow, sometime. We ought to sluice her through inside two days.
+Then there's the second dam. If we have luck we'll tie into the main
+drive pretty near on time. The others'll be about as late as we are."
+
+"I hope so," said Joe. "We don't want to hang up anywhere. I suppose
+McCane's drive will be out of our way?"
+
+"Sure to ---- unless he jams somewhere," said MacNutt. "Lebret Creek is
+faster than the Wind and opens earlier. It's good drivin'. He ought to
+be through the second dam by now."
+
+Lebret Creek joined the Wind above the second dam. They were then some
+twenty-five miles from the confluence, and four miles above the first
+dam.
+
+The day broke clear and splendid. Joe and MacNutt set off down stream
+for the dam half an hour behind a dozen of the crew. They cut through
+the woods across a three-mile bend of the stream and came suddenly upon
+it again.
+
+"By the G. jumping Jasper!" cried MacNutt.
+
+The river seemed to have shrunk. Logs lay along the banks, were caught
+in shallows, rocked in the feeble current. As far as the eye could reach
+stretched the shaggy backs of the brown herd, motionless or nearly so.
+The ancient bed of the stream appeared as it had been before the dams
+were built--a flat, rocky bottom over which a foot or so of water
+brawled noisily and ineffectively, utterly useless from the standpoint
+of a logger. The drive was plugged for want of water.
+
+A man appeared through the trees. He was running. "Dam's gone out!" he
+shouted as he came within hailing distance.
+
+Joe and the foreman looked at each other. There was no need to put the
+single thought into words.
+
+"Come on," said Joe briefly, and broke into a trot.
+
+They found the men gathered by the remnants of the dam. The wings of the
+structures sagged forlornly, and through the wrecked centre the stream
+poured over a rocky bed. The débris had been swept downstream by the
+rush of released water, and the ruin was beautifully complete. The cause
+of its going out must remain speculation merely.
+
+"What's the best thing to do?" Joe asked MacNutt.
+
+"Ward," said MacNutt, "you hike. Bring every man here, a-jumping. Load
+up a peakie with tools, blocks and tackle and dynamite and run her down
+river somehow. Load up another with tents, blankets, and grub, and tell
+the cook to bring her down. Camp is here till we move the logs. Get a
+move on you, now!"
+
+"There's only one thing to do," he continued to Kent. "The dam has got
+to be put in again. There's no fall to speak of, and four foot of water
+will float the best part of the logs. The rest we'll have to sack out.
+It means a week, but we can't help it."
+
+Regan, who after examining the wreck narrowly had taken to the bank,
+appeared above them. He carried a piece of timber, twisted and riven.
+This he dumped down before the boss.
+
+"Found her back in the brush," said he. "They used powder. I knowed that
+dam never went out by herself."
+
+"The infernal scoundrels!" said Joe.
+
+Regan looked at him hopefully. "I seen an Injun yesterday. He says
+McCane's drive is jammed near the mouth of Lebret. Say the word, boss,
+an' we'll mosey over an' half murder every mother's son of them!"
+
+"Thank you, Regan, but I can't say it," said Joe. "I have to get these
+logs out. If I don't get them I bust. Tell the boys that."
+
+The men began to arrive. MacNutt divided them into gangs and set them to
+work staying and shoring the remnants of the dam. Slight progress was
+made that day. The wanegan was looted and the peakies--a peakie is a
+flat-bottomed, double-ended river boat--made trip after trip, drawn by
+men wading in the shallows, until sufficient supplies were transferred
+to the camp by the dam.
+
+Light saw the crew at work. There was nothing fancy about the structure
+which MacNutt planned. It was built entirely of logs. Holes were blown
+in the bed of the river at intervals of a few feet, and in these were
+set buttress-logs slanted sharply upstream to back the timbers when the
+weight of the water should come against them. These things took
+time--days of the hardest kind of toil--but the impromptu dam was
+finally completed, even to the construction of a short slide to run the
+logs to the free water below.
+
+The river rose and backed up. The newly laid timbers groaned and
+complained. Now and then a startling crack made Joe's heart leap.
+
+"Will she hold, Mac?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"She's got to hold," said the foreman grimly. "I don't mean she's a
+permanent job; she ain't. If she'll last till we get through we'll blow
+her to glory."
+
+"Why?" asked Joe.
+
+"Because if we don't she may go out herself or some skunk may blow her
+for us when we're downstream. Half of us might be drowned and the logs
+winged out into the bush."
+
+But the jury-rig held. The water mounted higher and higher. Booms were
+strung, forming a funnel of which the sluiceway was the outlet. These
+also served to keep the weight of floating timber off the dam structure.
+
+Satisfied with the strength of his work, MacNutt hurried up stream. Many
+of the logs were afloat, moving sullenly; others were beginning to rock
+in the rising water. The men were working hard and steadily, with
+concentrated energy. Their peavies clanked regularly, and the logs
+twirled out of their resting places and trundled into the stream. Still
+the river rose, and MacNutt judged that it was high enough. Fearful for
+the strength of his dam he made an outlet by the simple expedient of
+knocking a few timbers loose. The water held at the new level.
+
+Down by the dam the herd of logs thickened and packed tight. The boom
+strained with their pressure. It was manned by men with long pike poles.
+They pushed here, restrained there, feeding the slide constantly and
+evenly, so that a nearly solid stream of timber shot through it into the
+good water below. When darkness fell, huge fires were lighted on the
+banks and the sluicing continued. Half the crew turned in immediately
+after supper; the other half kept the logs going. At two o'clock in the
+morning they shifted. By noon the last logs shot through. Then came the
+wanegan.
+
+MacNutt picked half a dozen men. "Throw her down little by little,
+boys," he ordered. "Don't be in a hurry, and don't use powder till
+there's no danger of a wave hitting us. We want a head of water, but not
+too much of it. The river's rising now."
+
+Joe looked back from the stern of the peakie in which he rode to catch
+up with the drive. The men had clambered out on the timbers and were
+busy with axes and saws destroying what had been so laboriously
+constructed. It had served his turn, but he felt regret. He would have
+liked it to stand, so that some day he might show Jack the rude,
+effective structure, and tell her the story of its building. He had had
+but small part in it, though his hands were blistered and ragged from
+handling rocks and rough timbers. He did not pose even to himself as a
+conqueror of difficulties; he gave the credit to MacNutt and his crew.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+MacNutt suddenly struck his head a violent blow with his clenched fist
+and swore. He and Joe sat before the fire smoking a final pipe before
+turning in, and the gurgle of the water under the banks was music to
+their ears, for it meant that the logs were travelling free by night.
+
+"What's the matter?" Joe asked, sleepily.
+
+"I ought to be kicked!" cried the foreman in tones of bitter
+self-condemnation. "I'm a saphead. I got no more sense than a hen.
+McCane blew that dam on us. What's to hinder his blowing the other when
+he's finished sluicing his drive? He may be through now."
+
+"By heavens, Mac!" Joe ejaculated, appalled by the prospect. With the
+late season's start and the delays which had already occurred such an
+occurrence would be a calamity. "By heavens Mac, we can't let him get
+away with it again! We can't afford to take a chance. We've got to be
+_sure_ he doesn't."
+
+MacNutt scowled at the fire, biting his pipe stem. "I can't think of but
+one way out," said he. "We've got to put a guard on that dam, and if it
+comes to a case they must have the nerve to make good."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"Just what I say. If any one starts monkeying with it they must stop
+him--with lead if they have to. Of course you'll be held responsible for
+such an order."
+
+Joe's mouth hardened. "Mac," said he, "this is make or break with me.
+I've got to get these logs out. Pick one man and I'll go with him
+myself."
+
+"Don't do that," MacNutt dissuaded. "The boys will look after it all
+right. You better keep out."
+
+"No, I'll go," said Joe with determination. "You need every hand on the
+drive. I won't ask any man to do what I won't do myself. Pick your man
+and fetch him in here. We ought to start now."
+
+MacNutt arose and left the tent. In five minutes he returned with a
+little, brown-faced riverman, Dave Cottrell by name. Joe was surprised.
+He had expected the foreman to choose Cooley, Haggarty, or one of the
+noted "bully-boys." Cottrell was an excellent riverman, active as a
+squirrel and ready to take any chances, but extremely quiet and
+self-effacing. He was never in a row, had no chums, and, apparently, no
+enemies. He minded his own business and avoided notice. Such speech as
+he essayed was brief and to the point.
+
+"Now Dave," said the foreman, "we think McCane may blow this dam on us.
+Mr. Kent is going down to see that it ain't done, and he wants a man
+with him. How about you? Of course this ain't what you were hired for."
+
+"That's all right," said Cottrell.
+
+"You understand," said Joe, "that we're going to protect the dam at all
+costs. Can you shoot?"
+
+"Some," said Cottrell, and MacNutt chuckled to himself.
+
+"Then get ready," Joe ordered. "We'll start in half an hour."
+
+"C'rect," said Cottrell, and departed to roll his blanket.
+
+Blankets and food for two days were made into packs. The outfit owned
+two rifles, one belonging to Joe, the other to the foreman, who gave it
+to Cottrell. The little riverman tested the action, filled the magazine,
+and shouldered his pack.
+
+"Now if you're ready we'll be goin'," said he.
+
+Straightway he took the lead and the command. Joe found himself
+relegated to a subordinate position, compelled to follow one who seemed
+to possess the eyesight and easy movement of a nocturnal animal. The
+riverman had discarded his spiked boots and taken to moccasins. His gait
+was the bent-kneed amble of the confirmed woods-loafer. It was not
+pretty, and it looked slouchy and slow; but it carried him along at a
+tremendous rate. Now and then he paused and waited for the young boss,
+but made no comment. They left the river and took to the bush, following
+a course presumably known to Cottrell. They crossed swamps and wormed
+through alder swales, coming out again on pine and hardwood ridges. Joe
+was hopelessly lost and bewildered. He had no idea of the direction in
+which they were going.
+
+"You're sure you're heading right?" he asked.
+
+"Why, of course," said Cottrell, surprised at the question.
+
+About two o'clock in the morning he halted by a little creek.
+
+"We better take a spell," he said. "You ain't used to this, but the
+travellin' will be better from now on."
+
+Joe was glad to sit down. His legs ached, and he was torn by limbs and
+briers; but besides the purely physical fatigue was that which comes of
+travelling an unknown route without the faintest idea of how much of it
+you are covering. He stretched himself out with his back to a log.
+Cottrell built a fire and hung a little pail over it. When the water
+boiled he made tea, and they ate. Afterward they smoked. Warmed and
+weary, Joe began to nod.
+
+"We better be gettin' on," said Cottrell.
+
+Once more they plunged into the forest, but it was more open and, as the
+riverman had foretold, the going was easier. Gradually the stars paled
+in the east, and a faint gray light succeeded. Then came the rosy
+streaks of dawn. Cottrell halted and held up his hand. Faint in the
+distance sounded the measured music of an axe.
+
+"We're in time," said Cottrell.
+
+They came out on the river and on McCane's rear. Cottrell led the way
+back into the bush and when they emerged again it was at the dam. The
+dam pond was brown with logs, and they were being sluiced through in a
+great hurry. A crew of unkempt, tousled rivermen manned the booms and
+kept the sticks hustling. Rough Shan McCane stood on the boom by the
+water-gate directing operations, and his profane urgings came to them
+above the sound of the water. As they stood on the bank, rifles under
+their arms, one of the men caught sight of them and pointed. Immediately
+they became the nucleus of all eyes. McCane came ashore accompanied by
+half a dozen of his crew. He walked up to the new comers.
+
+"What do yez want?" he demanded.
+
+"When will you be sluiced through?" Joe asked.
+
+"What business is that of yours?" growled the rough one.
+
+"You know what business it is of mine," Joe answered. "My drive's coming
+down. And I'll tell you something more, McCane, we're going to camp
+right here till it does. I warn you now--don't try to wreck this dam!"
+
+"Wreck the dam, is it?" said McCane innocently. "For why should we wreck
+the dam?"
+
+"I suppose you don't know that the one above went out and hung my drive
+for a week," said Joe with sarcasm.
+
+"Is that so?" said McCane with mock sympathy. "Well, well, ye do be in
+hard luck. What's the guns for? Deer is out o' season. Yon's a
+pretty-lookin' rifle, now. I'll bet it cost ye somethin'. Let me have a
+look at it."
+
+He stretched out his hand casually, and suddenly leaped. His hand
+fastened on the rifle barrel. Instantly Cottrell's weapon sprang to a
+level.
+
+"Drop that, McCane!" snapped the little riverman. "You men keep back
+there, or I'll onhook her into you."
+
+Rough Shan looked into the ominous tube and slowly released his grip.
+"Don't ye get gay wid that gun!" he warned. "I could have ye jailed for
+pointin' it at me."
+
+The little man's bright eyes twinkled behind the sights. "If she went
+off as she's pointin' now you wouldn't know what happened," he announced
+gravely.
+
+Joe backed up alongside him. "We're not looking for trouble," said he,
+"but the man who tries any funny business with that dam will get hurt.
+Go ahead with your sluicing, or my drive will be down on top of you."
+
+"Will it?" said McCane. "Then, let me tell ye this, young felly, it'll
+stop till I get through. I'll sluice when I please." Behind him his men
+growled angrily. He shook his fist and roared, forth a flood of
+blasphemy.
+
+To Joe's utter amazement it was answered by Cottrell. The little man's
+language was fairly blood-curdling. His words snapped and crackled with
+venom. Such a "cursing out" had never been heard along the Wind. Finally
+his voice cracked.
+
+"Burn our camp, would ye?" he croaked hoarsely in conclusion. "Hang our
+drive, would ye? Blow a dam on us, an' think for to do it again! The man
+that takes a stick of powder near it will never draw his pay. See them
+birds!"
+
+Fifty yards away two woodpeckers clung to the bark of a tree, hopping
+and tapping in search of the worms that were their food. Dave Cottrell's
+rifle swung to his shoulder. Two reports followed, spaced inappreciably
+by the jangle of the magazine action. Two mangled masses of bloody
+feathers fell from the tree. The little man regarded the unkempt crew
+with evil eyes.
+
+"Lemme see one o' ye make a bad move!" he challenged, and there was
+death in his voice.
+
+Not a man made a move, bad or otherwise. Cottrell chose a spot
+overlooking the packed logs and the sliding water of the sluiceway.
+There he sat down, rifle on knees, and smoked. He had apparently talked
+himself out, for he answered Joe's remarks with customary brevity.
+
+In half an hour McCane quit sluicing. He and his crew came ashore and
+lit their pipes, lounging in the sun. The men from the rear came in and
+the whole camp rested. This continued all day. It was evident that
+McCane had a purpose in view. With the fall of night Joe and Cottrell
+moved down on the dam. The stars gave an intermittent light. The banks
+were deep in shadow, but objects could be made out on the river.
+
+"You better lie down and get some sleep," Dave advised his boss. "Then
+you can spell me later. They won't touch the dam till their logs is
+through, likely, but they may try to do us up."
+
+Joe rolled up in his blanket and presently slept. The fires of the camp
+died down. Save for the deep roar of rushing water the night was still.
+
+About twelve o'clock three stones, thrown simultaneously, whizzed out of
+the darkness. Two missed Cottrell's head by a few inches; the third,
+thrown short, struck Joe's shoulder a glancing blow as he lay in his
+blanket.
+
+As he woke with a startled cry Cottrell's rifle spat a rod of flame into
+the dark. The man fired three shots and paused. A stick cracked in the
+bushes. Instantly he fired twice more at the sound, and listened. The
+camp was astir. Men poured out cursing in three languages. Through the
+babel Cottrell tried to make out the sound of footsteps. Failing, he
+fired once more, on general principles.
+
+"Stop it, Cottrell!" cried Joe. "We don't want to kill any one."
+
+"If one o' them rocks had hit my head it would have killed _me_,"
+snarled Cottrell. "I'll put the fear o' God in their rotten hearts!" He
+shoved in fresh cartridges savagely.
+
+"I think you've put it there now," Joe commented as the row subsided.
+"But don't shoot at their camp, or they'll start shooting back. They
+must have a gun in their outfit."
+
+Boom! The roar of a shotgun shattered the silence, and the shot pellets
+pattered against the logs and stones. Boom! the second barrel spoke.
+
+"Damn scatter-gun!" said Cottrell with contempt, and fired one shot. The
+crowd stampeded for cover as the bullet whined a foot above their heads.
+"It's all right--I held high," he explained. "It'd be just my darn luck
+to get one o' them little shots in the eye. Now they won't do no more
+shootin'."
+
+This prediction proved correct. The night passed without further
+incident. With daylight McCane's cook appeared and made up his fire.
+Later the crew crawled out of their dingy tents. A few washed at the
+river; but most made no attempt at a toilet. They sat on the ground and
+wolfed down their food. With the last mouthful they reached for tobacco.
+
+"Red McDougals, Callahans, and Charbonneaus--a dirty bunch," said
+Cottrell. The little man had sluiced himself with icy water from top to
+toe in the gray of the dawn, and was now frying slices of pork strung on
+green twigs above a small fire. "Some day the small pox will do a good
+job for 'em. Look at them scratch their backs against the rocks. Ugh!"
+His disgust was too deep for words. McCane emerged from his tent and
+Cottrell cursed him with venom.
+
+"What have you got against the man?" asked Joe reaching for a slice of
+bread.
+
+"He beat up a chum of mine once," Cottrell replied, "a little feller
+about my size that had no chance agin him. I'll get him yet for that. I
+wish t' God he'd made a move yesterday, an' I'd 'a' blowed his head
+off!"
+
+"Now, look here, Dave," said Joe, "we're here to protect the dam, and
+that's all. I won't have any feud mixed up with it."
+
+"I ain't mixin' it," said Cottrell. "I'm just prayin' he'll have the
+nerve to walk out to the sluice gate with a stick of powder in his hand
+or even a bulge in his shirt."
+
+But McCane and his crew lay around camp. Nobody went out on the booms or
+touched a log. The Kent drive would soon be running into their rear, and
+this meant confusion as well as delay. Joe finally left Cottrell on the
+dam and walked down to the camp.
+
+"See here, McCane," said he, "you've got to get your logs out of my way.
+You can't hang me up like this."
+
+McCane leered up at him insolently from where he lay stretched on the
+ground, resting comfortably against a log.
+
+"Can't I? Not a log goes through till I'm good an' ready."
+
+"But you've got no right----" Joe began hotly, and paused as he saw the
+living sneer in the other's eyes. He realized that argument was worse
+than useless and went back to his position. There he awaited the coming
+of MacNutt and his own crew, wondering what had delayed them.
+
+MacNutt had been delayed for a few hours by a small jam, but finally he
+ran into the logs of McCane's rear. He reached the dam at the head of a
+dozen indignant "bully-boys," and he and Joe tackled McCane.
+
+"You've got to move your logs," Joe told him again.
+
+"Not till I get ready," McCane answered as before.
+
+"You think you'll hang our drive, do you?" said MacNutt. "Well, you
+won't. You get your crew out on them booms at once and go to sluicing."
+
+McCane merely grinned.
+
+"Get at it!" cried the foreman furiously, and took a step forward.
+
+Rough Shan did not yield an inch.
+
+"If you want a fight you can have it quick," said he. "Me men have quit
+me. I can't pay their wages; I'm hung up meself."
+
+"That's a poor lie," said MacNutt.
+
+"Ask them," returned McCane. "If ye will step out here I'll beat the
+face off of ye!"
+
+MacNutt ignored the challenge and questioned the men. They backed up
+Rough Shan's statement surlily. Convinced that they were lying but
+unable to prove it, Joe and MacNutt held council. They had to get their
+logs through, and the only way to do it was to sluice McCane's first,
+and charge him with the time.
+
+"A lot of good that will do," said Joe. "He'll let us sluice them and
+then hang us up somewhere again."
+
+"Not if I can help it," said MacNutt. "I think I can work a game on him.
+Act as if you were good and sore."
+
+They returned to Rough Shan.
+
+"Your men say they won't work," said Joe. "We'll do your sluicing for
+you, but you'll pay us for it."
+
+"Like hell I will," said Rough Shan. "I'll sluice me own logs when I get
+a fresh crew."
+
+"You want to hang us up, do you?" cried Joe, finding no difficulty in
+simulating anger. "You can't do it. My men will pitch the whole bunch of
+you into the pond if I give them the word. I'll put your logs through.
+MacNutt, start the sluicing."
+
+"I warn ye to let my logs alone," said Rough Shan. "I'll hold ye
+responsible for every stick that goes through the chute."
+
+"All right," said Joe, and turned away.
+
+The sluicing began at once. MacNutt issued private instructions to
+Cooley and Cottrell. They started upstream, where they were shortly
+joined by ten more. There they picked up a peakie, and laboriously
+portaged the heavy boat through the woods well out of sight of the dam,
+setting it in the water below. With another trip they brought augers,
+boom-chains and shackles, and a manilla rope. Embarking they ran
+downstream two miles.
+
+At that point the river ran past the mouth of a backwater, an old
+channel, now an almost currentless little lake, reedy, with shores of
+floating bog and bottomed with ooze of unknown depth. The water ran into
+it sluggishly, and drained out half a mile below over muddy shallows.
+Logs once ensnared in this backwater could be taken out only at the cost
+of much time and labour.
+
+The dozen, working at speed, constructed a boom of logs shackled end to
+end. This they strung slantwise across the stream. One end was moored to
+the lower side of the backwater's inlet; the other to the opposite bank
+upstream. Thus logs coming down were deflected to the backwater. Six men
+with pike poles manned the boom, walking to and fro on the precarious
+footing, shoving the logs, as they came down, toward the slough. The
+others saw them safe inside. Dave Cottrell sat in midstream in the
+peakie, a rifle across his knees, watching either bank.
+
+The work proceeded merrily, for the rivermen enjoyed the trick. Late in
+the afternoon half a dozen of McCane's crew hove in sight. When they saw
+the boom and comprehended its meaning they ran forward to cut its
+moorings.
+
+"You get back there!" yelled Cottrell, raising his rifle. As they paid
+no attention to him he fired. The bullet cut dirt at the toes of the
+foremost. "I'll drop one of ye next time," Cottrell warned them, his
+eyes glued to the sights.
+
+They halted and cursed him.
+
+"When I count twenty I'm goin' to start shootin' the hats off of ye,"
+said Cottrell. "If I was on shore I could do it easy, an' hurt no one.
+Out here the water jiggles the boat, an' I may go high or low.
+One--two--three----"
+
+He began to count. At "ten" they gave back; at "fifteen" they were in
+full retreat.
+
+McCane, when the news was brought to him, ran out on the booms, his face
+working with rage. Profanity spewed from his mouth in a steady stream.
+
+"You'll bring every log out o' that backwater or I'll know why," he
+thundered. "A dirty trick!"
+
+"Dealin' with you we're dirty every time from now out, and you can tie
+to that," MacNutt told him. "Every log in your drive is goin' into that
+backwater if she'll hold them. You'll get them out yourself, or train
+beavers to do it for you. You stinkin', lowdown Mick, you've been givin'
+us dirt all winter. Here's where we get square. Now get off o' these
+booms, or I'll bash in your head with a peavey. If I say 'sic 'em' to
+the boys you know what'll happen. You won't have camp nor crew nor
+nothin' in ten minutes, an' you'll spend the summer in a hospital, like
+enough. I'm _sick_ of you! Get out!"
+
+McCane's courage was beyond question, but the odds were against him.
+Twenty hardened fighters, every one of whom thirsted for a chance to
+trample on his face with caulked boots, crowded up behind MacNutt. His
+crew, rough and tough as they were, were outnumbered, and Kent's men
+were picked "bully-boys" with a score to even.
+
+"All right," said he. "You hear _me_, MacNutt--I'll get even with you
+an' Kent. It's comin' to both of ye. The woods ain't big enough for me
+an' you now."
+
+"Bah!" said MacNutt, and spat.
+
+McCane went ashore. MacNutt shut down the sluicing with darkness. In the
+morning it began again. That day saw McCane's entire drive packed in the
+backwater. He was helpless to prevent it.
+
+Kent's logs slid down merrily into the free current, and Rough Shan and
+his wild crew cursed the rear out of sight as it swept around a bend
+below. Then they went at the tedious task of extricating their own drive
+from the backwater. Rough Shan the next day put Callahan in charge and
+departed, as he said, to see about supplies, for his grub was running
+low.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+In due course the Wind River logs reached McColl's Sney, where Tobin and
+Deever had already brought their respective drives, and were waiting
+impatiently with McKenna for the others. A strong crew had gone upriver
+to lend a hand, and as soon as MacNutt's logs got within a few miles the
+booms were opened and the entire drive thrown into the current.
+
+McColl's boasted a post-office, and there Joe found a stack of mail
+awaiting him, among it half a dozen letters from Jack; and it is a sad
+commentary on his attention to business that he opened these first.
+
+Jack did not run to sentiment in correspondence. Her letters were frank,
+newsy notes, and she was keenly interested in the drive and all that
+pertained to it. She wrote much as a partner in the business might
+write, giving here and there a bit of advice from Bill Crooks's ripe
+experience; but beneath the frank words and often slangy phrases ran a
+tender undercurrent which Joe was quick to detect.
+
+"What a little brick she is," he said to himself as he folded her last
+letter and placed it carefully in an inside pocket. "When we get into
+touch with the railway, I'll bring her up to see the drive. She'd like
+that, bless her little heart."
+
+This was the real thing at last. He knew that thenceforth no pleasure
+would be perfect which she did not share, no sorrow too great to be
+borne with her help. He looked at the logs, acres and acres of them
+herded in the booms and drifting by in the current, at the steel-shod
+rivermen who ran here and there pushing and guiding, at his camp set
+back beneath the budding trees; and he realized that the mainspring of
+his life and his endeavour had changed. It was no longer the
+business--his father's business--personal pride, nor the desire to
+succeed that held him to effort; but it was Jack--straight, slim little
+Jack, with the crown of dark hair and the frank, fearless eyes. From
+such realizations spring success.
+
+The next letter he opened was from Locke, and the news it contained was
+not only unexpected but very good indeed.
+
+    You will be surprised to hear the action against Garwood _et
+    al._ has been discontinued, Crooks agreeing with me that we
+    should accept the terms of settlement offered, which, however,
+    did not proceed from Garwood directly. As a matter of fact, the
+    action was getting out of the realm of law into that of
+    politics. The newspapers were beginning to sit up and take
+    notice, and it looked as if our innocent little lawsuit might
+    blossom into a general investigation which, in turn, might
+    involve a number of prominent people. At this stage I received
+    an intimation that if we dropped the action we could have what we
+    wanted, and after consultation with Crooks we decided to do so.
+
+    Having the whip hand we were by no means modest in our demands.
+    You will hear no more of the proceedings in contempt against you
+    for your disregard of the Court's order re-trespass upon
+    Clancys' limits, and destruction of their property. So, too,
+    Clancys' action against you for the said destruction will be
+    withdrawn. In future you will both receive a fair share of
+    orders from the contractors who have been boycotting you; you
+    will get a fair deal in buying timber berths; the railway will
+    give you all the cars you want; and there will be no
+    discrimination against you in haulage rates. This means that
+    your businesses will be henceforth on a fair competitive basis
+    in the above respects, which is all you can expect. It also
+    means that the riot act has been read to Garwood by some people
+    who are in a position to read it. Just how he was persuaded to
+    crawl down I don't know, though I rather think a threat of
+    legislation affecting his railways was the means used. You see
+    he might very easily be forced to spend anywhere from half a
+    million up on useless frills and equipment merely as a
+    beginning. Anyway, you may depend upon these terms of settlement
+    being carried out.
+
+    But all the same you are by no means out of the woods, and a
+    great deal depends upon your ability to deliver your logs to
+    Wismer & Holden by July 1st. I am satisfied in my own mind that
+    their offer and the "little joker" in the contract were both
+    inspired by Garwood; also that they will not give you an hour's
+    grace. McDowell, of the Farmers' National, tells me that his
+    bank cannot carry you after that date--indeed, only the
+    practical certainty of your filling the contract induced them to
+    finance you to the extent which they did. If you don't make good
+    they will shut down on you, and proceed to realize on what
+    securities they hold. Then, a payment will be due on your
+    mortgage to the Northern Loan Company. You need not expect any
+    leniency from them. So, if I were you, I'd hustle the logs down
+    day and night.
+
+Joe was delighted with the first part of the letter. With fair
+competition in the future he saw plain sailing ahead. But the latter
+part gave him some uneasiness.
+
+It was then well along in May, and the drive was at least three weeks
+later than it should have been, due to the backward season and to the
+unforeseen delays. That night Joe held council with his foremen. The
+probabilities were carefully canvassed, and at the end of the discussion
+old Dennis McKenna voiced the general opinion.
+
+"We can make her with a week or two to spare--if we don't strike a snag
+somewheres," said he. "That's allowin' for usual hard luck, too. The
+river's risin' now. The snows up north are meltin' and she'll boom soon.
+That'll help us a lot."
+
+Day after day the brown logs of Kent's big drive slipped down the
+current. He had experienced foremen and a strong driving crew. A log no
+sooner touched the shore than it was thrust back into deep water. The
+drive was strung for miles, and all along the banks prowled husky
+rivermen, peavey or pike pole in hand, keeping the sticks hustling.
+
+MacNutt and the Wind River crew, reinforced by most of Deever's, had the
+rear, which usually means hard work, for none of the logs must be left
+behind. McKenna travelled daily up and down the banks overseeing the
+whole, and Joe tramped with him. Tobin, ahead, kept a sharp lookout for
+obstructions and possible jams. But so far not a jam worth mentioning
+had formed.
+
+"She's too good to last," said McKenna one night. "Tobin will hit the
+Silver Chain to-morrow, and then look out. I figured on higher water
+than this."
+
+The Silver Chain was a succession of rapids greatly disliked by river
+drivers. It extended for a couple of miles, white, torn patches of water
+with some clear current between. The banks were steep, sheer rock
+fringed with dwarf pines, frowning ceaselessly at the foam and turmoil
+below. Jams had a habit of forming there, and nearly always some sort of
+trouble occurred. The crew had calculated upon this and they got it, for
+early the next day Tobin sent them word of a jam which he had not been
+able to break, and demanded more men.
+
+"And she's a bad one, sure enough," said McKenna, when he and Joe
+arrived.
+
+The jam had occurred in a rapid familiarly known as "Hell's Bumps,"
+about midway in the Chain. Just how it had formed nobody knew. The logs
+were running free when suddenly half a dozen plugged and held for an
+instant only, but it was sufficient for others to pile on top of them.
+Every moment brought down fresh sticks, and the fast water flung them at
+the growing mass to make a part of it. Some shoved, up-ended, and forced
+others aloft. The face of the jam rose high, abrupt, and dangerous. The
+tail grew swiftly upstream. By the time McKenna arrived it had become a
+genuine, old-time "teaser." The foremen went over it carefully, with
+glum faces, for this meant more delay; no one could tell how long it
+would take to break it. They pondered the current and the depth of water
+as they knew it by experience, and were not encouraged.
+
+"Sooner or later we'll have to use powder on her," said McKenna; "we
+might as well use it sooner."
+
+He set the crew to work picking out logs so that the dynamite might be
+exploded in the bowels of the monster. The men worked with a will but
+gingerly, for the task was dangerous. The dynamite was placed deep in
+the jam. When it exploded the mass heaved, shook, buckled, and moved a
+few yards downstream, where it plugged again. Nothing had been gained.
+
+"It'd take a carload of powder to root her out," said Tobin in disgust.
+"We'll just have to dig into her with the peavies, Dinny, and trust to
+luck."
+
+So they dug with the peavies for three days, and nothing happened.
+Occasionally there would be a quiver and a long, shuddering groan as if
+a monster were awaking from sleep; and once a series of startling,
+premonitory cracks and a sharp movement set the jam crew zig-zagging for
+shore. But this proved a false alarm, for the tremendous pack of timber
+merely settled down and squatted immutably upon its brown haunches, the
+bristling top of it seeming to grin defiance at the puny efforts of man.
+
+"If it takes a trainload of powder we've got to break it," said Joe
+desperately, and telegraphed Wright from the nearest station to send on
+a supply of high-explosive.
+
+As the keystone supports an arch so key-logs hold a jam. If they can be
+found and dislodged, the jam collapses and disentangles. Finding them is
+difficult, laborious, and very dangerous. If there are dams above, a
+head of water is sometimes let loose suddenly and the jam swept away.
+But there were no dams, so that Kent had his choice between manual
+labour, which is slow and costly, and dynamite, which is sudden but
+uncertain. By way of compromise he used both, and still the logs did not
+move.
+
+He began to feel a strange personal enmity toward them. They were his,
+bought by his money, cut by his crew, inanimate, senseless things. And
+yet in the mass they seemed to possess a personality, a living spirit of
+pure, balky cussedness; they lay in bulk, a brown shaggy monster that
+obstinately refused to heed the voice of its master.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Joe stood on the jam, watching the crew dry-picking out the logs and
+throwing them into the water, burrowing down for a place to use more
+powder, when his name was shouted. He looked up, and his heart gave a
+decided thump. Above him stood William Crooks and Jack.
+
+Joe leaped the logs and ran up the bank. "How did you get here?" he
+cried. "Why didn't you let me know you were coming?"
+
+"We thought we'd surprise you," said Jack sedately. "I persuaded dad. I
+wanted to see how _our_ drive was coming down."
+
+"It isn't coming down just now," Joe observed. "We can't stir it. Here,
+come over to my tent and make yourselves at home. Oh, Jimmy," he called
+to the cook, "rustle a good meal, will you? Spread yourself on something
+fancy, now."
+
+The cook grinned amiably, and became suddenly shamefaced as Jack smiled
+at him. "I ain't got much fixin's," he apologized. "If th' lady, there'd
+tell me what she'd like----"
+
+"Why, you're Jimmy Bowes!" cried Jack. "I remember you, twelve years ago
+on dad's camp on the Little Canoe. You used to give me lumps from the
+brown sugar barrel. Jimmy, I'll always love you for that."
+
+Jimmy Bowes blushed to the top of his bald head as he shook hands.
+"You've growed," said he. "Sure, I remember, but I didn't think you'd
+know the old bull-cook. You're--you're real purty!" Suddenly embarrassed
+by his own candour and Joe's laughter he retreated to his own domain
+where, cursing his cookee, he plunged into preparations for a
+magnificent meal.
+
+McKenna and MacNutt came ashore and met Crooks.
+
+"Well, boys," said the old lumberman, "she's a teaser, hey!"
+
+"You bet," replied McKenna. "She's solid as a cellar--froze to the
+bottom all the way. Still, the water's risin' now, an' she may pull most
+any time." He did not believe a word of his statement, but he spoke so
+that Joe should not be discouraged. Crooks, who did not believe a word
+of it either, nodded.
+
+"That's the way with big jams. I remember, thirty years ago on
+Frenchman's Creek--" He drew McKenna and MacNutt out of earshot,
+relating his story. Suddenly he stopped. "Look here, Dinny, if this jam
+don't break mighty soon young Kent goes out of business."
+
+"Well, I wish t' God I knew how to break her," said McKenna. "The boys
+can't work harder than they're doing. We've put in shots 't'd rip a
+mountain loose, and she just lays back her ears and sits tighter."
+
+Meanwhile Jack and Joe walked upstream along the bank. Here and there on
+the flanks of the wooden monster crews of men picked away with peavies.
+The clean smell of the millions of feet of freshly cut, wet timber
+struck the nostrils. The water tore and snarled at the wedged logs, and
+little streams shot through the mass, hissing and gurgling; the voice of
+the checked river was deep and angry.
+
+"To-morrow we're going to fill it up with powder and see what that
+does," said Joe. "With the rising water it may start things. If it does
+not--" He shrugged his shoulders. If the jam did not "pull" soon he was
+broken, and he knew it.
+
+Jack slid her arm in his. "Dad says the big jams go when you least
+expect it. This will. You have time yet, Joey-boy."
+
+He patted her hand. "It's good of you, Jack. Anyway, I've done my best,
+and if I'm downed this time I can make a fresh start. I know something
+about the business now."
+
+Jack looked at him and nodded. He was quite unlike the neatly tailored
+Joe Kent of a year before. He wore a battered felt hat, a gray shirt,
+trousers cut off below the knees, and heavy woollen stockings. On his
+feet were the "cork boots" of the riverman. Already he had mastered the
+rudiments of "birling," and could run across floating logs, if not
+gracefully at least with slight chance of a ducking. He was bronzed and
+hard, and his hands were rough and calloused. But the difference went
+deeper than outward appearance. He was stronger, graver, more
+self-reliant, and the girl recognized and approved of the change.
+
+The day faded into dusk. Big fires were lighted at the camp. Crooks and
+his daughter remained for supper; afterward they were to drive back to
+the little town, coming back the next morning to see the big shots let
+off.
+
+Crooks lit a cigar and joined the foremen, to discuss the jam and the
+probability of breaking it, and yarn of his own experiences with mighty
+rivermen whose names were now but traditions. The men lay about the
+fires, smoking and talking. They were tired, and the popular vocalists,
+shy because there was a girl in the camp, hung back and muttered profane
+refusals when asked to sing. Jack was disappointed. "I haven't heard a
+shanty song sung by a crew in ages. I wish they would wake up. Am I the
+wet-blanket?"
+
+"I'll go over and tell them to sing anything you like," Joe offered
+promptly.
+
+"No, that wouldn't do. Some of them are going to their blankets already.
+To-morrow night--when the jam is broken--we'll have a celebration. I'll
+sing to them myself."
+
+"If it _is_ broken!"
+
+"Now, Joe," she reproved him severely, "you brace up. We're going to
+break that jam to-morrow; and we're going to deliver our logs on time,
+and don't you dare to even _think_ we're not. I tell you we are! Don't
+get discouraged, for we're going to win out."
+
+"You're a good booster, Jack" he said, smothering a sigh. "Of course we
+are. And once we get through here we'll have plain sailing."
+
+He pressed her hand gratefully. It was something to receive
+encouragement, even if it was plainly labelled, and he would not be so
+ungracious as to tell her so. Crooks loomed out of the darkness and
+called for his team. Half an hour afterward Joe was the only man awake
+in camp, and he drifted into slumber with the memory of the soft touch
+of Jack's lips as they lay for a moment on his.
+
+In the morning the jam was sown with dynamite, planted deep beneath the
+logs at points approved by McKenna. Crooks and Jack arrived. The men
+came ashore and waited anxiously.
+
+Almost simultaneously, columns of water, strips of bark and twisted,
+riven wood shot high in the air, and the detonations thundered back from
+the rocks. A rumbling growl issued from the inwards of the wooden
+monster. It heaved and rose. Logs toppled down the face of it, and then
+the whole front cascaded in wild confusion. Just when it seemed that the
+whole thing must go motion ceased. The shaggy, bristling brute settled
+back into immobility. The shots had failed.
+
+Bosses and men swore fervently. These continued failures were blots on
+their records as rivermen. Their employer needed those logs badly, and
+it was up to them not to disappoint him. The jam was big and ugly, but
+it must be broken. Doggedly they climbed out on the logs again and set
+to work.
+
+When the jam failed to "pull," Kent looked at Jack, reading the bitter
+disappointment in her face. Somehow it helped him to conceal his own.
+
+"Better luck next time, girlie," he said. "Anyway, we made a lot of
+noise."
+
+She smiled back at him, but her lips quivered, "Of course it will pull
+next time; it can't help it."
+
+"Of course not," he agreed, being quite convinced to the contrary.
+
+They fell silent, gloomily watching the crew at work. Below them a man
+clamped his peavey into a log at the base of the pile and swung back on
+it so that the tough stock bent like a whip. Failing to move it he
+called a comrade. They pried and boosted, their clinging shirts bulging
+with the swell of their back-muscles. Suddenly the log came away.
+Immediately a groan rose from the timbers. The men sprang to alertness.
+Crackings and complainings ran through the mass.
+
+The girl caught Joe's arm.
+
+"It's going out, Joe! It's going out! Oh, see it pull!"
+
+There was no doubt of it. The jam "pulled" with the bellow of a maddened
+beast. Logs shot outward, upward, downward--every way, rolling over and
+over, smashing, up-ending, grinding. Through them the white, torn water
+boiled madly. The core of the jam seemed to leap bodily downstream and
+then split into fragments.
+
+Over the turmoil the rivermen fled for shore, each man balancing himself
+with his peavey, held low across his body. Their flight was swift, but
+unhurried and calculated. In face of the deadliest peril of the
+riverman--the breaking jam--they were cool and wary, timing to a nicety
+leap from tossing log to tossing log.
+
+Suddenly, opposite the watchers, a man lost his footing and pitched
+forward. Another, twenty feet away, cleared the space with two leaps,
+caught the first by the collar and dragged him upright, but the man
+sagged down, evidently badly hurt. The other dropped his peavey, heaved
+him up in his arms and, thus burdened, made for shore. He sprang once,
+twice, hampered by his load. Then a wave of smashing timber surged down
+and over them. They were blotted from the world, effaced without even a
+stain on the torn water.
+
+Jack, deadly white, with shining eyes and parted lips, stared at the
+spot where they had been.
+
+"Oh, the brave boy--the poor, brave boy!" she cried. "Who was he, Joe?"
+
+"Ward--Ward and McClung, two of my best men--chums," Joe told her
+bitterly. "I wouldn't have--Jack! Jack, look there!"
+
+Strung along the jam as the men were when it pulled, some of them had no
+direct route for shore. Among these were McKenna, Dave Cottrell, and
+Hill and Laflamme of Deever's crew. The last three were noted "white
+water birlers," experts upon logs under any and all conditions, and
+McKenna, the old walking boss, in his best days had never found a man
+who could put him off a stick of pine.
+
+When the jam began to pull they were opposite a stretch of rocky bank
+that offered no way of escape.
+
+"Boys," said McKenna, "it's a bad chance, but we've got to take
+it--we've got to ride her down."
+
+As he spoke the log on which he stood pitched sideways beneath him. He
+left it as a bird leaves a bough, alighting on another, and ran the
+tossing mass downstream. Cottrell, active as a squirrel, kept close to
+him. Hill and Laflamme, too, kept together but without premeditation,
+for each instinctively took the course that looked best to him. They
+dodged over and across the up-ending, smashing timbers, avoiding death at
+each spring by the thickness of a hair. It was this sight which had
+caused Joe Kent's exclamation.
+
+Hill was the first to go. Just once he miscalculated by the fraction of
+an inch. He disappeared without a sound. Laflamme, just behind him,
+sprang across the spot where his companion had been, his eyes widening,
+his teeth bared and set, his gaudy voyageur's sash streaming from his
+waist, a bright flag fluttering in the face of destruction. Suddenly an
+up-ending log brushed his thigh. It was little, but it threw him from
+his stride. His shriek soared high above the roar of wood and water as
+the great logs nipped out his life.
+
+Neither McKenna nor Cottrell looked back, though they heard the cry.
+Their own case was too perilous. A log thrust up suddenly beneath
+Cottrell's feet and threw him into the air as if he had been shot from a
+springboard. He alighted on his feet again by the purest of luck, and
+seeing an opening of water and a free log, leaped on it, whence he made
+his way to shore. McKenna, dead-beat, gained the outlying logs and fell
+as he reached solid earth.
+
+Behind them the jam swept by in tossing, foaming grandeur, the backed-up
+water scouring all before it. McKenna staggered to his feet and waved a
+gaunt arm.
+
+"Into her, boys, and keep her hustling!" he shouted.
+
+But MacNutt and Deever were already on their way upstream. Tobin and his
+crew attacked the outlying logs and flung them into the current. Soon
+the channel was brown with the shooting sticks, flashing by in the
+racing water.
+
+Jack, pale and shaken, sat and watched them go by. The bright sun, the
+dancing water, the bird songs from the woods, and the fierce activity of
+the rivermen were all at variance with the vision of sudden death which
+she had beheld. Joe, grave and silent, came up accompanied by her
+father.
+
+"I guess we'd better be going, daughter," said Crooks gently.
+
+She shook her head. "No, dad, I'd like to stay, please. Just leave me
+here. Joe has the work to see to, and you'd like to be there, too." The
+men looked at each other, and her father nodded silently. They went
+upstream to where the rear was working ferociously.
+
+Jack, left alone, stared at the river, reconstructing the scene, which
+she was never to entirely forget. It was the first time she had seen
+men, rejoicing in the pride of their strength, wiped from life as dust
+is wiped up by a damp cloth. From her childhood she had spent days and
+even weeks in her father's camps, meeting the big, rough shantymen who
+one and all adored her; getting glimpses of their life, but only
+touching the outer shell of it; seeing them against a background of
+cheerful labour, ringing axes, song and jest, as real and yet as unreal
+as a stage setting--a background which in her eyes surrounded them with
+the elements of romance. Of their vices she knew nothing save by
+hearsay; of the tragedy of their lives she knew even less. Now, before
+her young eyes, Fate had swooped and struck instantly and without
+warning. Small wonder that she was shocked.
+
+And she was shocked, also, by the apparent callousness of the dead men's
+comrades. They worked carelessly, as it seemed, about the very spot
+where the others had died. But here common sense came to her aid. The
+logs--Joe's logs, their logs--must be got out. No matter what toll the
+river claimed the drive must go down and to market.
+
+It was the way of the world. In this as in other things, human life was
+the cheapest of commodities; its loss the least important hindrance, of
+less practical moment than the breakage of an ingenious man-made
+machine. She sighed as the realization came to her. It seemed heartless,
+yet she could not escape it. Sitting on the log, staring at the river,
+her lips moved in almost unconscious prayer for the men who had died
+like men, doing the work they were paid to do.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+With the breaking of the big jam the luck of the drive seemed to change.
+The river was rising, the water was good, the logs travelled freely day
+and night without halt. Indeed, the delays seemed about to prove
+blessings in disguise, for other firms' drives, more fortunate, would be
+out of the way. Also when they reached the lower almost currentless
+stretches of the river, down which the logs would have to be towed in
+booms by steamers, there would be no delay. But these calculations were
+upset one day when they got news of a drive just ahead of them.
+
+Straightway Tobin and Joe went down to see about it. Sure enough there
+was a drive, and as he looked at the end of a stranded log the foremen
+swore indignantly, for on it was stamped the "CB" of Clancy Brothers.
+
+"It's their drive from Basket Lake," said Tobin. "They should have had
+it down three weeks gone." As they passed downstream he called Joe's
+attention to the rear crew. "Look at that. See 'em sojerin' on the job.
+They're loafin', every mother's son of them, and they've a stronger crew
+than they need, too."
+
+They found Clancys' river-boss, Tom Archer by name, smoking a pipe and
+watching the indolent efforts of half a dozen men who were not even
+pretending to hustle.
+
+"I thought you would have been down long ago," said Tobin. "Our drive is
+right behind, and we'll be bumping your rear to-morrow if you don't get
+some ginger into your crew."
+
+"They're a lazy bunch," said Archer without the flicker of an eyelid. "I
+just have to do the best I can with them. I've cursed them till my
+throat went back on me."
+
+Tobin regarded him narrowly. "Let me handle them for twenty-four hours
+and I'll show you a difference."
+
+"Thanks, but I can run my job myself," said Archer dryly.
+
+"The point is," Joe explained, "that my drive is coming down a-humping,
+and we need all our time because we have a delivery contract to fill.
+Can you keep ahead of us, do you think?"
+
+"Couldn't say," returned Archer.
+
+"I don't want to run down on top of you," said Joe. "How would it be if
+I turned a dozen men into your rear to lend a hand?"
+
+Archer regarded him in silence for a ten-second interval. "When I need
+your help, bub, I'll ask for it."
+
+"I didn't mean it that way," Joe explained. "I don't suppose you want to
+delay me. It's about four days to Moore's Rapids. Will you oblige me by
+booming there till I get through? Of course I'll pay for the time of
+your crew."
+
+"No," Archer replied. "I have my rights on the river and I don't have to
+get out of your way. You can tail along behind me."
+
+"The hell we can!" flared Tobin, whose temper was always set on a
+hair-trigger. "Do you think we ain't onto you, Archer. What's Clancys
+payin' you for doin' their dirty work?"
+
+Archer put his pipe in his pocket with deliberation. "Any more talk like
+that, Tobin, and you and me will settle it right here," he announced.
+
+Tobin, nowise loath, would have accepted the challenge instantly, but
+Joe restrained him and pointed to a man who appeared on the bank.
+
+"It's quite plain what this gentleman is up to, Tobin. There's Rough
+Shan McCane. I guess any more talk is waste time."
+
+McCane sprang down like a cat and advanced truculently. "Tom," said he
+to Archer, "I'm going to give this young feller a father of a lickin'
+an' put the boots to him afterward. You look after the other one."
+
+Joe did not assume any attitude popularly supposed to be one of defence,
+but the bunched shoulder muscles crept and crawled beneath his shirt,
+and Archer, eying him carefully, interposed a decided negative.
+
+"No, you won't. I don't want any trouble with Mr. Kent or his crew. If
+they crowd us it'll be different."
+
+"It'll be a lot different," said Tobin. "You're McCane, are you? I've
+heard of your doin's this winter. You've got it comin' to you, me buck,
+tie into that."
+
+Then and there hostilities would have started but for Joe and Archer,
+who kept cool. Tobin and McCane growled at each other like leashed
+fighting-dogs.
+
+"Come along, Tobin," Joe ordered. "We're wasting time. You won't
+reconsider my offer, Archer?"
+
+"No," replied Archer flatly, "I won't. I have the right-of-way, and I'll
+keep it."
+
+The way he intended to keep it immediately became apparent. His drive
+travelled with maddening slowness. His rear crew made great pretence of
+working, but the feint was transparent and the tempers of Kent's men
+wore under the strain. One or two fights took place, more or less
+indecisive. Clearly a climax was at hand.
+
+Joe took counsel with his foremen, and they threshed the matter out one
+night sitting around the fire. It was plain that as long as Clancys'
+drive kept ahead they could make no speed. Much time had already been
+lost. They could not pass it on the river, and Archer would not yield
+his right-of-way at Moore's Rapids. It looked like an impasse. It was
+quiet Deever who suggested the only way out. Deever usually had little
+to say. The reverse of Tobin, he was slow to anger, but knew no limit
+when aroused, as unruly lumber jacks found to their cost. He was rather
+small of frame, but built of wires and steel springs.
+
+"If we run our drive right on top of them and mix the logs we'll make
+better time than we're making now," said he. "Then we sack out our own,
+and they can bring theirs along or not, as they like. There's sortin'
+booms at Moore's, and we've a strong crew, just spoilin' for a scrap. If
+we take charge an' cull out all Clancys' logs, why, then we get ahead.
+It just means a little fight."
+
+The foremen looked at each other and nodded. Then they looked at Joe.
+"It sounds good," said he. "Of course, we haven't any right to do it."
+
+"Not a right," said MacNutt cheerfully, "but we've got a blame good
+crew."
+
+Joe laughed. "Go to it, then," said he. "Slam the whole drive down on
+top of them as soon as you can."
+
+The speed of a drive depends upon the work of the crew, for although
+logs can travel no faster than the current the more that are kept in the
+current the faster the whole will travel. Kent's men sailed into the
+work like demons. No log had a chance to rest. Soon the two drives
+tangled and became one, although naturally Clancys' leading logs were
+far in advance of Kent's. The latter's crew left the other logs
+religiously alone, but Clancys' men soon began to shove Kent's logs
+toward the shallows.
+
+"Leave them logs alone!" roared Big Cooley savagely, detecting a man in
+the act. The man swore back at him defiantly and shoved another log
+shoreward. Cooley jumped from the log on which he stood, alighting on
+the one ridden by the offender, and knocked him into the water.
+
+In two minutes the crews were more tangled than the logs. More of Kent's
+men piled downstream and joined the melee. Finally Clancys' rear crew,
+badly whipped, left the field to their opponents.
+
+When Archer heard of the fight he came back at once. "I won't stand
+this," said he. "You've got no right to run into my drive."
+
+"Keep it out of my way, then," said Joe. "I gave you your chance; I'm
+going to drive clean through you."
+
+"We'll see about that," said Archer, and took his departure.
+
+Thereafter his crew worked hard but avoided trouble. Nevertheless the
+drives were hopelessly entangled, and they drew near Moore's Rapids.
+
+The booms at Moore's had been put in and were maintained by the various
+lumber firms for their own convenience, so that one had as much right to
+them as another. This was lucky for Kent, for had the booms been owned
+by a river improvement company, as were those on the lower river, he
+could not have carried out the high-handed act he contemplated. As it
+was, the question resolved itself into whether he could seize the booms
+and hold control of them while he sorted the logs. By so doing he laid
+himself open to an action for damages, but he could better afford that
+than further delay.
+
+Twenty-four hours before any logs could reach Moore's, McKenna chose a
+picked crew and took possession of the booms, forestalling Archer, who
+intended to do that very thing himself. Therefore when he arrived with a
+picked crew of his own some hours later he became righteously indignant.
+
+"I have the right-of-way, McKenna," said he, "and my logs are going down
+that channel first. You can sort out yours and wait your turn."
+
+"I hear what you say," said McKenna from the boom. "You're making a
+little mistake, Archer. _Ours_ are going through first."
+
+"What?" cried Archer, suddenly realizing the situation. "Do you know
+what the law is? The leading drive has precedence in booms, chutes, and
+slides. You'd better be careful!"
+
+"I know all that," retorted McKenna. "That's the law--_and we're going
+to break it_. You'd hog the river on us, would you? Well, we'll hog the
+booms and channel on you!"
+
+Archer spat into the stream and swore. "I have nothing against you,
+McKenna, but you nor no other man can hang my drive. I'll bring down my
+crew and clear you off the booms. If I can't do that I'll cut them and
+let the whole shootin' match go down together."
+
+"That's big talk," said McKenna. "Now you listen here. We're doing this
+cold because we have to, and you know it. We won't stop at anything.
+Bring down your crew and try to clean us out if you like. We expect it.
+But if you try to cut the booms it's different." He pointed to a pier
+out in the current. On it in a state of splendid isolation, sat Davy
+Cottrell. "That man out there has a rifle and he can hit birds flying
+with it. He'll shoot the first man that touches the booms. If you don't
+believe that, get somebody to try."
+
+Shortly afterward the first logs began to arrive, and with them Archer's
+entire crew. Immediately they made a determined attempt to seize the
+booms, but as these were already occupied by Kent's men, against whom
+they could advance only in single file, their numbers gave them little
+advantage. The fight raged along the length of the slippery, swaying
+boom-logs. Men knocked off into the river swam and climbed up again, or
+cunningly seized others by the ankles and upset them, taking the chance
+of being kicked in the face by spiked boots. Gradually Archer's men
+pushed McKenna's backward and might have driven them from the booms
+altogether had not the rest of Kent's crew arrived, thirsting for
+battle.
+
+Archer's crew, now hopelessly outnumbered, fought gamely. The fight
+spread from booms to shore. Tobin went for Archer and met his match.
+MacNutt tried to get to Rough Shan, but could not. Quiet Deever,
+white-faced and eyes ablaze, his lips lifting at the corners in a
+wolfish snarl, was before him.
+
+"'Rough Shan' they call you," he gritted through set teeth. "Let's see
+how rough you are, you dirty cur. Come on an' rough it with a littler
+man, you lousy, camp-burnin' high-banker!" He planted a terrific right
+in McCane's face, and was himself knocked sideways the next instant by a
+heavy swing. They went at it hammer-and-tongs.
+
+Joe Kent found himself paired with a smooth-faced, bronzed, shanty lad
+who fought with a grin and hit with a grunt. His blows were like the
+kicks of a mule, but his knowledge of boxing was rudimentary. The young
+boss smashed him almost at will, but the grin never faded. Always he
+came back for more, and when he landed, it jarred Joe from top to toe.
+Finally they clenched and wrestled to and fro among the rough stones of
+the beach. At this game Joe rather fancied himself, but all he ever
+remembered of the outcome was that suddenly his feet flew into the
+air--the rest was a shock, accompanied by marvellous constellations.
+
+He came to with water sluicing his face and a hat fanning air into his
+lungs. He got to his feet rather dizzily, looked around and laughed.
+
+"You cleaned them out, did you?"
+
+Deever, his face battered and swollen and his knuckles cut to raw meat,
+grinned happily. Tobin, one eye closed and the other blinking, nodded.
+
+"We're sluicin' now."
+
+"We put the run on them," said McKenna, whose leathery face bore the
+marks of war. "Lucky for us we had the numbers. They're hard lads, but
+'tis not like they'll bother us again. Now, boys, the boss is all right.
+Out on the booms with yez."
+
+Without delay they swarmed out on the booms. Others went upstream to
+hustle the logs down. The work of sorting and sluicing went forward
+merrily, for Kent's logs outnumbered Clancys' in the proportion of four
+to one, and besides the crew was not very particular as to the ownership
+of individual logs, which could be culled out later. The main thing was
+speed. Clancys' logs were sided into an inner boom; Kent's were allowed
+to go down with the current. It took time, but it was worth it.
+
+Thus Kent's big drive passed Clancys' and ran Moore's Rapids in defiance
+of the law and usage of the river; but every man, from the young boss
+down, was very sure that the end justified the means, and was quite
+ready to take any consequences that might accrue from the high-handed
+act.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Joe Kent preceded his drive to Falls City by a few days. He found Wright
+in great feather. Several large orders had been placed, proof that the
+terms of the settlement mentioned by Locke in his letter were being
+carried out. But when Joe asked the lawyer for more details the latter
+shook his head.
+
+"I can't mention names, for that was part of the arrangement," said he.
+"You be satisfied with what you've got. You're a hundred times better
+off than if you had merely exposed Garwood."
+
+"I know it," Joe admitted; "but are you sure the arrangement will be
+carried out?"
+
+"Certain. You've got good orders coming in, haven't you? You won't have
+anything to complain of hereafter. How about those logs? Can you deliver
+them on time?"
+
+"I think so," Joe replied.
+
+"Well, you'd better be mighty sure before you take them past your own
+booms. Wismer will refuse to accept them if he gets half a chance, and
+see where that would leave you. You couldn't bring them back upstream,
+and there isn't a concern on the river below Wismer that would buy them,
+this side of Hughson's Mills. To get there, towing charges and tolls
+would eat up your profits, and old Hughson would whipsaw you, anyway."
+
+"Crooks says I can do it, and so do my foremen," said Joe. "I've got to
+sell the logs to meet my liabilities. I'll keep barely enough for my own
+mill."
+
+"All right--if you're dead-sure," said Locke.
+
+The situation was made very clear to Joe. He was told plainly that the
+bank had gone with him as far as it would go. In the event of
+non-delivery his credit would be cut off and his securities sold. The
+mortgage company would enforce their rights in any event. Also there was
+no doubt that Wismer & Holden would enforce to the letter the penalty
+clause in their contract. These things, taken together, meant
+bankruptcy. And that would mean that his marriage with Jack must be put
+off indefinitely. On the other hand, if he delivered the logs he could
+wipe off most of the debt, put his business on a solid basis, and ask
+her to become mistress of the old Kent homestead without delay. It was
+worth fighting for, and Joe's' lean jaw hardened as he swore to himself
+that nothing should stop his drive.
+
+Business claimed him by day, but the evenings he was able to spend with
+Jack. They sat in the dusk of Crooks's wide veranda, watching the stars
+light and wink in the June sky, while soft-winged moths fluttered
+ghost-like among the shading vines. Neither was overly given to
+sentiment, but in those brief evenings their confidences grew; and each,
+looking into the other's inmost mind, found there only honour and
+loyalty and little of ambition, but a great desire to live straightly
+and cleanly and truly, thinking evil of none and doing such good as
+might be.
+
+Being ordinary young people they did not put these things into words.
+They rather shied from the sentimental and high-flown, preferring the
+more accustomed planes of speech and thought. But they understood each
+other, and so were content. The only shadow, and a constantly recurring
+one, was the question of the drive.
+
+"If I don't make it I'm busted," said Joe practically, "and so I've got
+to make it. There's no reason why I shouldn't. Now, it's this way." For
+the twentieth time he went over the problem.
+
+"Dad says you can make it," Jack agreed. "It's a week to Steven's Ferry.
+Down to Burritt's Rapids is two days more. Then allow time to tow
+through Thirty Mile Lake--oh, you can make it with nearly a week to
+spare."
+
+"Of course I can," said Joe, "and then, Jack, I think we'd better get
+married."
+
+She flushed to the roots of her brown hair.
+
+"In the fall, Joe?"
+
+"No--right away. What's the use of waiting? My business will be solid
+then, and I deserve a holiday. Let's take one together."
+
+"Well"--she considered the question gravely, without affected
+hesitation--"I'd like that. I'll see what dad says about it."
+
+"It's up to you."
+
+"Yes--I know. Still, we'd better not leave him out."
+
+"I don't want to. He's as good a friend as I have. What he says goes, of
+course; but he won't object if you don't."
+
+"I won't." Suddenly she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
+"Oh, Joe, you've got to deliver those logs! You've got to, you've got
+to!"
+
+"Jack," he said grimly, "I'd deliver 'em now if the whole blamed river
+dried up. Come down to-morrow and see them go through. We'll cut out
+enough to run the mill, but the main drive will go straight ahead and
+I'm going with it. I'll wire you as soon as we strike Burritt's Rapids.
+I can tell then how it's going to go."
+
+"Do you think I'll stay here?" she cried. "Dad and I are going down to
+see the drive come into Wismer & Holden's booms. You'll probably see us
+at Thirty Mile."
+
+The sun was barely risen when the first logs of the big drive swung down
+leisurely, their pace accelerating as the faster current above the falls
+gripped them. This vanguard was run into Kent's booms, and the rivermen
+cheered as they caught sight of the young boss, and cheered again for
+William Crooks and his daughter who stood beside him. They ran gaily
+along the slippery brown logs and danced lightly across their backs,
+pushing, pulling, prodding, guiding and restraining, and the booms
+filled magically.
+
+The main drive did not halt at all. The river was crowded with logs, and
+they were fed through the huge water-gates of the slides as fast and as
+thick as they would run. It was beautiful, clean, uninterrupted work,
+and when the last stick had shot through Joe bade Jack good-bye and
+followed.
+
+Now, at last, the drive was on the homestretch with a few days to
+spare--a narrow margin, but still a margin. It was then the fifteenth of
+June, and the river was at its best. Taking into consideration the high
+water and consequently more rapid current, Joe hoped to reach Burritt's
+Rapids by the twenty-third. That would give one week from that point to
+Wismer & Holden's mills, a distance of thirty-five miles. Below
+Burritt's Rapids, however, was Thirty Mile Lake, a shallow, almost
+currentless expansion of the river, some thirty miles long and varying
+in width from half a mile to two miles, through which the drive would
+have to be towed by steamers owned by a river improvement company, who
+also owned the booms above the rapids. The time occupied by towing would
+depend on the weather. Therefore, although the probabilities were in
+Joe's favour there was always a doubt. He must remain on the anxious
+seat till the actual event.
+
+Because of the good water the drive made Burritt's on the twenty-second
+instead of the twenty-third. They made it in a heavy downriver gale with
+an accompaniment of slashing rain that soaked every one to the skin.
+
+Because a drive turned down the rapids would simply float all over the
+lake and have to be gathered up again, a task involving much time and
+trouble, the logs were always put through a narrow, inner channel
+protected by cribwork and booms, and caught in other booms below. There
+steamers took them in tow and turned them loose down other rapids at the
+foot of the lake, which were about three miles above Wismer & Holden's
+booms. Accordingly, when they made Burritt's with some daylight to spare
+the dripping crew ran the drive into the booms and started to feed down
+the inner channel. When darkness fell they winched a boom across the
+narrow mouth and quit.
+
+The ground was wet, the tents were wet, and so were the blankets.
+Although it was June the wind was raw and cutting. The rain slashed and
+sputtered at the fires. Clothes hung before them steamed, but
+accumulated moisture faster than they dried. Altogether it was
+miserable, and the rivermen cursed the weather heartily. They squatted
+on the sodden ground beneath canvas that let through fine spray with
+every gust, and big teardrops which had an aggravating habit of landing
+on the back of the neck, and juggled tin plates piled with pork and
+beans on their knees, wiping them up with huge wedges of bread.
+
+"A curse of a night," grumbled Haggarty, shifting away from a drop which
+threatened to become a stream. "Black as a cord of black cats, an'
+rainin' fit to flood hell! An' not a dry stitch to me back, an' the
+blanket's soaked, an' all. Fill up me plate again, you, cookee, an' slap
+a dose of molasses on her. Praise be, me hide is waterproof an' the
+inside of me's dry."
+
+"An' that's more nor mine will be this day week," said big Cooley,
+licking his lips in pure anticipation. "A hard winter, an' a long drive.
+The throat of me aches for the rasp of a drink of the good stuff!"
+
+"For sure, for sure," Chartrand agreed with him. "I'll be dry, me, lak
+one sap maple in August. When dat drive is finish', by dam' I stay dronk
+for one mont'. Hooray!"
+
+"An' you see me so," Cooley promised. "I'll find that McCane an' put the
+boots till him till he can't crawl. A dirty dog! An' Tom Archer is no
+better--no, nor his bosses."
+
+In another tent Joe and his foremen ate supper and listened to the rain,
+the wind, the roar of the rapids, and the swirl of the current as it
+talked against the booms. MacNutt went out and came back dripping.
+
+"Can't see a thing," he reported. "The wind is gettin' worse, an' the
+water's risen nigh a foot. How is them booms, Dinny? Our whole drive is
+down by now, an' there's an awful weight on them with this wind an' the
+high water."
+
+"I went over them when we came down," returned McKenna. "They're all
+right. The big lower one is three logs, and well anchored."
+
+"They should have another anchor-pier in the middle of it," growled
+MacNutt. "It has an awful belly. If it went out on us----" He paused and
+shook his head.
+
+The boom referred to was directly above the rapids, strung at an angle
+across the river. Upon it came all the pressure of the logs above. It
+was a massive affair, built of three logs fastened side by side and
+chained to other threes end to end. The ends of the boom were secured to
+huge, stone-filled piers. It appeared capable of holding any weight of
+logs.
+
+"What's the use of talkin' like that, Mac?" said Tobin, half angrily.
+"You're borrowin' trouble for every one. The boom's all right. I looked
+at it myself after Dinny did." Nevertheless he went out ten minutes
+later and was absent sometime. "She sure has a belly on her," he said
+when he returned. "She'll hold, though. I think the wind's dropped
+some."
+
+As he uttered the words a shrieking gust almost laid the tent flat. A
+shout and muffled curses followed.
+
+"I'll bet one of the men's tents has blown down," said Joe. "Hear Cooley
+swear."
+
+They grinned at each other as Cooley rose to the occasion. The wind grew
+worse. The side and roof of the tent bellied in and slatted in the
+squalls. Tobin went out and tautened the guy ropes.
+
+"It'd blow the bark from a tree," he cried when he came in.
+
+McKenna sat pulling his grizzled moustache. The wind, the rapidly rising
+water, the huge weight of timber, and MacNutt's forebodings were getting
+on his nerves. Suddenly he began to pull on his spiked river boots.
+
+"What's up, Dinny?" MacNutt asked.
+
+"I'm going to look at that boom," McKenna replied. "You've got me all
+worked up over it. I _know_ it's all right; but all the same----"
+
+"I'll go with you," said Joe, reaching for his boots.
+
+"You're not good enough on the logs yet," said the walking boss bluntly.
+"It's pitch dark and blowin' great guns. It's an old hand's job, Mr.
+Kent. You'd only hinder me."
+
+Joe realized the truth of the words.
+
+"Well, I'm going," said MacNutt.
+
+"Same here," said Tobin.
+
+"Sure," said Deever.
+
+Each man took a lantern. Joe went with them. Anyway he would go as far
+as the first pier. They could hear the logs grumbling and complaining.
+
+"I don't like it," said MacNutt. "It sounds--" He hesitated to put the
+thought into words, and swung his lantern high, peering at the
+intensified darkness.
+
+"Oh, shut _up!_" snapped Tobin. "What do you want to croak for? Of
+course they'll talk with the wind an' current an' all. Funny if they
+wouldn't."
+
+They ran out across the almost solid carpet of timber that filled the
+head of the channel, and reached the anchor-pier of the big lower boom.
+McKenna, in advance, stopped short with a gasp:
+
+"They're moving, boys--they're _moving!_"
+
+Slowly, with the calm certainty of irresistible might, the big drive was
+on its way. The logs ground at the anchor pier and thrust and bumped at
+it. The feeble rays of the upheld lanterns threw a short circle of light
+on the field of timber as it slid smoothly downstream. Joe's heart, for
+the first time, skipped a beat. The boom had gone out.
+
+McKenna leaped out on the moving logs. MacNutt caught him.
+
+"Come back, Dinny! What do you think you can do?"
+
+McKenna's seamed face was absolutely colourless as he turned to Joe.
+
+"He's right, Mr. Kent. I can't do a damned thing. It's my fault. I
+should 'a' backed the boom with another."
+
+His voice was vibrant with sorrow and self-accusation. He knew what it
+meant to his employer. The logs, driven by the wind, would go down the
+rapids and be flung far and wide over Thirty Mile Lake. To gather them
+up would be a task of weeks; they could not be delivered on time.
+
+Joe met the blow like a man. "That's all right, Dinny," he said. "It was
+up to the company, not to you. Their boom was weak somewhere, that's
+all. Now what can we do about it? They have two steamers below. We'll
+need 'em right away. Mac, you tell 'em to get fire under their boilers,
+quick. Promise 'em anything. Say you've got the company's orders--but
+get 'em. Tobin, rouse out the boys and get 'em down to the boats
+double-quick. Take every foot of rope and chain you can find or steal.
+Deever, you open the channel boom and let everything go that will go.
+Dinny, you come with me."
+
+In five minutes they were banging at the door of the boom company's
+representative, bringing that worthy citizen from his bed to the window.
+
+"Your boom has gone out and my drive is over the rapids into the lake,"
+Joe told him. "I haven't got time to talk about damages or liabilities
+now. I want your steamers day and night till I sweep my logs up and
+every other boat you can hire as well. I want every river man you can
+lay your hands on, too. I'll pay for these things at once, pending the
+adjustment of any question of responsibility. Will you do your best for
+me?"
+
+"Sure I will," said the agent. "Wait till I get my clothes on and I'll
+come along. It's funny about that boom. I don't see----"
+
+But Joe and McKenna were already out of earshot, hurrying back to the
+river. The camp was buzzing like a hornet's nest. Men were catching up
+ropes, chains, peavies, and pike poles and hurrying off into the
+darkness. Joe, Tobin, and McKenna followed.
+
+As they passed the head of the channel where Deever and half a dozen men
+were stationed the foreman called to them:
+
+"I've got something to show you, Mr. Kent. It won't take five minutes."
+
+He led the way over the logs and down the cribwork and booming of the
+channel, and stopped: "One end of the boom swung down here when she went
+out," he said, and lowered his lantern. "Look at that!"
+
+They bent low and peered at the ends of three joined boom-timbers. The
+ends were white, square, and new.
+
+"Sawed through, by thunder!" cried McKenna.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The _Sophie Green_, a beamy, shallow-draft, paddle-wheeled old
+teakettle, lay broad-side-on to a rickety wharf which was piled with
+cord wood. From the pile, across her gang-plank and back again, trotted
+an endless procession of deckhands and rivermen, carrying the big sticks
+that were her fuel. The fires were roaring beneath her boilers, and the
+gauge was beginning to move.
+
+A hundred yards away, at another cord wood pile, her sister craft, the
+_Ada Bell_, was receiving like attentions. Out in the darkness, by the
+fitful light of lanterns, half a dozen big riverboats crowded with men,
+were shackling up short lengths of boom into longer ones. Chains rattled
+and hammers rang on cold-shuts as the crews joined the timbers. Down the
+shore for a mile and more other rivermen hunted for boats, taking
+everything that would pull two pairs of oars.
+
+When she had steam enough the _Sophie Green_ bellowed and cast off,
+wallowing around in a short semi-circle. A peakie shot under her stern
+and a heaving-line uncoiled across her deck. To this was attached a
+hawser. It came inboard to the bucking clatter of a winch, and was made
+fast to the towing bitts. Then the crew of the peakie swarmed aboard;
+the peakie was hoisted up with half a dozen others, and the _Sophie_
+felt her way downstream in the darkness, a half-mile of boom trailing
+after her. In twenty minutes the _Ada Bell_ followed with more
+boom-timbers in tow.
+
+The river just below the rapids was obstructed by the floating logs of
+the broken drive, and the _Sophie_ went through them gingerly, fearful
+for her paddle-wheels. It was still pitch-dark and blowing hard, but the
+rain had ceased. The lake opened out before them, scummed with foam and
+torn into choppy, white-topped waves among which the logs were tossing.
+
+Joe and McKenna were in the wheel-house with Capt. Jimmy Congdon, a
+veteran of the river who had been a warm friend of William Kent's, and
+was ready to do anything for his son. Captain Jimmy was broad, ruddy,
+and silver-haired, with a pair of steady blue eyes that never shifted.
+Periodically he spat to leeward with precision, but until the lake
+opened up his whole attention was devoted to the wheel.
+
+"Steerin' on a night like this is mostly be-guess and be-god," he
+vouchsafed. "There's Six Mile Light off to sta'bo'rd. Now, young man, I
+run this boat to suit you, so tell me what you want."
+
+"I want to boom the logs the easiest and quickest way," Joe informed
+him. "How would you do it?"
+
+Captain Jimmy spat and reflected. "Blowin' like she is now logs'd jump a
+boom even if we got 'em into one; but she's breezin' too hard to last.
+If it was me, come daylight I'd boom off the Fire Island Channel and
+sweep the floatin' stuff into it."
+
+This advice was identical with McKenna's. Joe decided to adopt it.
+Daylight found them lying to, below long, swampy Fire Island, which lay
+well over toward the eastern shore. They strung a boom from the lower
+end to the mainland, thus closing the channel and forming a great
+pocket; and then they went at the tough job of "sweeping up" the
+scattered drive.
+
+The logs were strewn all over the upper end of the lake; but by that
+strange attraction which floating objects have for one another many of
+them lay in small rafts. They lay inert, motionless on the almost glassy
+expanse, for the storm had blown itself out and a sunny day of almost
+perfect calm succeeded. When these floating patches of timber were
+reached the peakies were dumped over the side and the rivermen tumbled
+into them.
+
+The _Sophie Green_ steamed in a slow, careful circle, and when she had
+completed it her half-mile of trailing boom lay in a great loop about
+many patches of logs. She picked up the other end and went ahead, and
+the logs naturally sagged back into the farther end of the loop.
+
+The _Ada Bell_ went through a similar manoeuvre. Then they steamed up to
+more logs, winged out one end of the boom alongside, and the men in the
+peakies fed them more logs through the opening. When the booms were
+full, they took them to Fire Island, emptied the logs out into the big
+pocket, and came back for more.
+
+As the morning lengthened they obtained reinforcements in the form of a
+powerful tug belonging to the company and a couple of launches whose
+owners were not averse to making a few honest dollars. These were of
+material assistance. The tug took one end of a boom and the _Sophie_ the
+other and steamed straight ahead in parallel courses. The swath of the
+boom took up every log between the two boats. Then the _Sophie_ took up
+both ends as before, but left a dozen lengths of boom-timbers trailing
+free. These were winged out by a launch, and the rivermen fed logs down
+the moving funnel thus formed. The tug, meanwhile, went to the
+assistance of the _Ada Bell_.
+
+In this manner the lake was being expeditiously cleared of the rafts of
+floating logs. Joe blessed his stars for the quiet weather, but for
+which he could have made but little progress, and prayed for its
+continuance. He had eight days to sweep up the broken drive and bring it
+through, and this was not a bit too much.
+
+The logs floating openly in the lake were the easiest part of the job;
+but there were more, strewn along the shore, washed high and dry and
+embedded in the sand by the storm or caught in shallows and marshy
+bays--there was where the pull would come.
+
+In the afternoon a long, lean power-boat racketed up the lake, nosed the
+logs inside Fire Island, went up one shore and down the other, and
+finally ran alongside the _Sophie Green_. In it sat Wismer, and he
+hailed Joe, who looked over the rail.
+
+"This is a nice mess your drive is in, Kent," said he. "I'm afraid you
+won't be able to get it down in time."
+
+"I'll try, anyway," Joe told him.
+
+"You can't make it," said Wismer. "Now, I don't want to be hard on you,
+and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make you an offer for the logs as
+they lie, and if you'll accept it I'll cancel our existing contract."
+
+"Let's hear your offer," said Joe. When he heard it he laughed, for it
+was entirely piratical. "You must think I'm easy. You couldn't steal
+logs much cheaper."
+
+"Take it or leave it," said Wismer, a little puzzled. The Joe Kent with
+whom he had made his contract had certainly been easy; but this bronzed
+young fellow leaning over the rail was different. "You don't want to
+forget that penalty clause," he added warningly.
+
+"Not for a minute," said Kent. "I know quite well that Ackerman or
+Garwood framed up that cinch contract. And I know you're trying to get
+the logs cheap now, and give them the double-cross. I'm not
+kicking--merely pointing out that I know what you're up to."
+
+Wismer reddened, and for the first time found a difficulty in meeting
+the young man's eye. "You're talking utter nonsense," said he. "I don't
+know what you mean, and I don't much care. If you like to take up the
+offer I've just made, all right. If not, I'll hold you to the letter of
+our contract."
+
+"I'm holding myself to it," said Joe. "I want you to have your booms
+ready for me, for the first tow of logs goes down the lake to-night."
+
+He watched Wismer's launch gather way, and turned to the business in
+hand. At dusk the _Ada Bell_ picked up one tow and the tug another, and
+started down the lake. The tired crew went ashore just above Fire
+Island, where the camp was established. Joe and McKenna remained on the
+_Sophie_. After supper the foreman came aboard to plan the next day's
+work.
+
+"Boys," said Joe, "who cut that boom?"
+
+"McCane, an' no one else," MacNutt answered, and the others nodded.
+
+"That's what I think," said Joe, "but I'll never be able to prove it.
+Now, then, about the drive. Is it possible to get it down on time?"
+
+"Shure," said McKenna, "if we have good weather."
+
+"Not unless," said Tobin.
+
+On a fine-weather basis they planned the work. In the morning they went
+at it again. Before noon the tow-boats returned, the long booms trailing
+behind them. Their tows had been emptied down the rapids, and a small
+crew was seeing them safe into Wismer & Holden's booms.
+
+Late in the afternoon a launch--a flying thing of spotless paint,
+burnished brass, and throbbing engines--split the lake. A wall of water
+fell away on either side of her shearing stem, and the white kick of her
+wake streamed out behind like a giant ribbon. She slowed and swung
+daintily up to the dingy _Sophie Green_. In her sat William Crooks and
+his daughter.
+
+"Hello, Joe!" roared the veteran lumberman. "Hello, Jimmy!" to Captain
+Congdon. "Throw down a ladder or something. We want to come aboard."
+
+They came aboard, and the very spick-and-span young man who owned the
+launch looked doubtfully at the other young man in the flannel shirt,
+short trousers, and spiked boots, who was on such enviable terms with
+pretty little Miss Crooks.
+
+"How's she comin'?" Crooks demanded, and Joe told him. "I got twenty
+boys off my drive on the way to give you a boost," the old lumberman
+continued. "We'll show these fellows a thing or two about sweepin' up
+logs. Jimmy, my girl and I are going to camp down on this old tub of
+yours till the last log's out of the lake. Got room for us?"
+
+"You bet I have, Bill," replied Congdon, "Miss Jack, you take my
+quarters."
+
+"Couldn't think of it, thank you, Captain Congdon," said Jack promptly.
+"I wouldn't put you out for the world."
+
+"Mutiny, by the Lord!" shouted Captain Jimmy. "Young woman, I'm a
+bachelor, and used to having my own way. I get awful mean and cranky
+when I'm opposed. It'd be just like me to refuse to tow a single blame
+log if you don't obey orders."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!" said Jack. "Any more orders, sir?"
+
+"Only that you're to ask for what you want if you don't see it," said
+Captain Jimmy, grinning.
+
+The launch shot away down the lake, and the _Sophie_ continued to gather
+logs. Night fell. This time one boat was sufficient to tow all the day's
+take. Jack and Joe sat on the foredeck in the dusk, listening to the
+soft lap of water alongside.
+
+"I can't tell you what I felt when I heard the drive had broken, Joe,"
+said she. "It seemed so safe before, and now--but you'll make it, Joe, I
+know you will!"
+
+"I'll make it or bust--and that's no figure of speech," he told her
+grimly. "Those twenty men your father has lent me will just about turn
+the scale. The boys are working like demons--each man doing the work of
+two; but it depends on the weather more than on anything else. A couple
+of windy days would knock us cold. However, there's no use worrying
+about that, and all the weather sharps in the crew, and Congdon as well,
+say it has set for fair. To-morrow night we'll work by moonlight. I feel
+a presentiment amounting to a hunch that you'll be Mrs. Kent before
+another moon."
+
+She nestled closer to him. "If I were a very conventional person I'd
+insist on three months at least to prepare a trousseau and make sure of
+a lot of wedding presents--but I'm not. I've spoken to dad, and he makes
+your delivery of these logs the only condition. And now, boy, it's time
+you were asleep. You're working as hard as any of the men."
+
+The floating logs had all been gathered up. Now the crew attacked those
+hung in bays and jettisoned on shoals and points. It was slow, hard
+work, but little by little the broken drive was gathered up. The fine
+weather held. Nightly tows went down the lake, and each morning the
+empty-booms trailed back for more.
+
+Joe Kent worked with his men. He was strong, active, and enduring. He
+developed a fair amount of skill with a peavey, and he derived a fierce
+satisfaction from each log that he twisted from its resting place and
+rolled into free water. By just that much he was beating Garwood,
+Ackerman, Clancys--all the gang who, as principals or tools, had
+determined to loot his business and strip him of his inheritance.
+
+His young, sinewy body responded to the calls made upon it. Wet to the
+waist he worked all day and at night until the moon set, cheering on his
+crew with laugh and joke. Afterward he stumbled aboard the _Sophie
+Green_ almost too tired to speak, even to Jack; but the first dim light
+saw him drop over the side eager for the new day's work.
+
+That week Joe lost twenty pounds--and he was not fleshy to start with.
+Those days of heartbreaking work and the nerve-strain back of it cut
+lines in his face which were never wholly erased. It was for him a
+desperate hand-to-hand grapple with time. Logs, logs, logs! By day he
+worked with them, and by night they crowded his dreams. He had to lift
+them, to climb over them, to count millions of them; sometimes piles of
+them cascaded on him, burying him from the world; sometimes they were
+about to fall on Jack. He would wake, a cry of warning on his lips and
+the sweat running from every pore of his iron-hard body.
+
+His men responded nobly to the call. They held a fierce, jealous pride
+in their drive, in their ability to bring it down, in making good any
+promise given by their employer. Chronic grumblers over small things,
+they accepted cheerfully the eighteen hours a day of work, and even
+stretched it a little. And every minute of every hour they worked. Each
+man moved with a spring and a jump. There were no laggards--none for the
+foremen to curse. They took in Bill Crooks's chosen twenty and fired
+them with the same fierce energy. But this was not a hard task, for the
+word passed around somehow that on their success in getting out the logs
+depended the marriage of Kent and Miss Jack. Every man straightway felt
+a personal responsibility, and the way they sailed into the job made
+Kent's crew hustle to keep pace.
+
+Bill Crooks threw off thirty years, put on a pair of spiked boots, and
+tramped up and down the shore bellowing encouragement to the rivermen.
+Most of it took the form of virulent curses directed at the men who had
+persistently tried to hang Kent's drive.
+
+"But they can't do it, boys!" the old logger would roar. "They may blow
+dams and saw booms, but we'll do them yet. Birl into her, bullies! All
+the blasted high-bankers between this and the booms of hell can't hang
+us up." Then the men would bark fierce assent, and whirl into the logs
+with fury.
+
+And so, by unremitting work by day and night, the big drive was swept up
+from open water, shoal, point, and bay. On the twenty-eighth of June, at
+midnight, the last logs were boomed. Half an hour afterward the _Sophie
+Green_, the _Ada Bell_, and the big tug started down the lake with heavy
+tows. The boats were full of rivermen, proud in the consciousness that
+they had set a record for the river. Their toil and their weariness of
+body were forgotten. Only a few days separated them from town, where
+they would make up for both, according to time-honoured custom. They
+shouted songs--expurgated editions out of deference to Jack Crooks--and
+the hoarse cough of the ancient _Sophie Green's_ exhaust, delivered at
+exact intervals, chopped the verses in two.
+
+Jack and Joe had arranged a little treat. The cook rustled a wonderful
+meal. Boxes of good cigars were passed around. A phonograph played in
+the bow of each boat. The trip down the lake was as good as a moonlight
+excursion, and the men of Kent's drives talk of it yet. One by one they
+lay down on the deck, beside the boilers, anywhere and everywhere, and
+slept the sleep of exhaustion.
+
+In the morning they let the tows down the rapids. The rivermen debarked,
+followed down the river, and hustled out the bunches of logs that the
+few men who had preceded them had not bothered about. It was plain
+sailing now. That day and the next the channel was brown with logs.
+Kent's foremen and Wismer & Holden's cullers checked them as they came.
+Joe and Jack stood out on an anchor pier and watched the booms fill.
+More logs came down and still more.
+
+Far away on the morning of the thirtieth they heard the bellowing
+whistles of the _Sophie Green_ and _Ada Bell_, and the deep-throated
+blast of the tug telling them that the last of the big drive was down.
+At six o'clock that night the booms closed behind the last log.
+
+Joe drew a long breath. "Thank heaven," said he. "Now, girlie, we'll
+have the best meal they can put up in this little town."
+
+"We will--but we'll have it in camp," she informed him. "I've arranged
+with Jimmy Bowes. This is my treat to the men."
+
+They occupied the head of an impromptu table of pine boards. Down its
+length and along similar tables were ranged the rivermen. Huge roasts,
+fowls, vegetables, and stacks of pies were piled before them, for Jimmy
+Bowes, having _carte blanche_ from Jack, had raided the shops of the
+town. When the meal was over Haggarty rose, very red and confused amid
+low growls of encouragement:
+
+"Go to it, Larry!"
+
+"What are ye waitin' for?"
+
+"Shut up an' listen to him, now!"
+
+"Mr. Kent, an' Miss Crooks an' Mister Crooks," began Haggarty, and
+paused. More growls of encouragement. "I'm no speaker, but the boys
+wants me to tell ye something, an' it's this: There's them that's had it
+in for ye these months past, an' has done their da--I mean their
+dirtiest--to spoil yer cut an' hang yer drive. They haven't done it, an'
+for why? Bekase ye're good stuff, an' kept a stiff upper lip an' stayed
+wid the game when others would have give it up, beaten. There ain't a
+man that ain't proud to work for ye, an' we'll stick by ye, Mr. Kent,
+till there's snowballin' in--in summer. That's what I was to say. An'
+besides that, an' not wantin' to be fresh at all, we wish you an' the
+young lady all sorts of luck an' happiness."
+
+Haggarty sat down and was pounded on the back. Joe rose, almost as
+confused as Haggarty. "Boys," said he, "you knew I was in a tight place
+and you stayed with me. I've got you to thank that my logs are here
+to-night, instead of somewhere upriver. Each man of you has done the
+work of a dozen, and I want you to know that I'm grateful. I can't pay
+you in money, but I want to say that I'm the friend of each man here,
+and any time one of you wants anything from me all he has to do is to
+ask for it. I hope to have you all with me next year, and I'll saw every
+log we cut in my own mills. Just one thing more, and that's an important
+one." He took Jack's hand and she rose blushing and laughing while the
+men cheered madly. "Miss Crooks will be Mrs. Kent in a few weeks, boys,
+and we ask you all to the wedding."
+
+The shout that went up startled the little town. They cheered and
+pounded the table with hammer-like fists. Then in the tumult began a cry
+which soon grew insistent:
+
+"Cooley, Cooley! Big Bill Cooley!"
+
+"Speech, Bill!"
+
+"Get up on yer hind-legs, ye bully-boy!"
+
+"Tell the boss about it, Bill!"
+
+From the seclusion of the foot of the farthest table came muffled,
+shamefaced protest and muttered profanity. Suddenly half a dozen pairs
+of arms heaved the big riverman upon the long table.
+
+"Heavens, Joe! what has he been doing?" gasped Jack.
+
+For big Bill Cooley's face was puffed and cut, and one eye was quite
+closed. The other glared wickedly at those who had thrust him into
+prominence. His right hand was bandaged, and the knuckles of the left
+resembled a hamburger steak. Plainly Cooley had been in the wars.
+
+"You fellies make me tired," he growled. "Let me down out o' this!"
+
+"Tell the boss an' his young lady first," howled the crew.
+
+"Go ahead, Cooley," Joe encouraged him.
+
+"They ain't nothin' to tell, Mr. Kent," said Cooley. "I only catched
+Rough Shan McCane in among the lumber piles this afternoon and took a
+birl out of him."
+
+The crew yelped joyously beneath him.
+
+"He won't walk for a month!"
+
+"Ye done him up good, Billy-buck!"
+
+"The boots in his face, an' all!"
+
+"Hooray for dat beeg Bill Cooley, de boss bully-boy!"
+
+"Dry up, ye divils! How can he hear himself?"
+
+But Cooley made a flying leap from the table, and nothing could induce
+him to mount it again. Joe got details at second hand of the fearful
+licking administered to McCane by Cooley, a combat which had been
+witnessed by only half a dozen. In the end the big riverman had kicked
+his enemy into unconsciousness with his spiked boots, according to
+ancient custom. He desisted only when it was apparent that the fallen
+man's life hung in the balance. As he and his fellows looked at it, this
+was merely justice, and very light justice at that.
+
+More than half the crew started for town to drink the health of the
+young boss and his bride-to-be. It was a beautiful excuse. Jack and Joe
+walked up the river's bank to take a last look at the logs. They had
+little to say, for the reaction had set in. They stood silently in the
+moonlight, gazing at the fields of brown timber covering the surface of
+the river, safe down at last at the cost of a winter's toil, a spring's
+heartbreaking endeavour, and a toll of human life.
+
+Joe put his arm around the girl's waist and drew her to him. Strong and
+full-throated, mellowed by distance, came the last refrain of old Bill
+Crooks's favourite river-song as the crew shouted it on their way to
+town.
+
+    "When the drive comes dow-un, when the jam comes down,
+    What makes yeez lads so wishful-eyed as we draw near to town?
+      Other eyes is soft an' bright, like the stars of a June night--
+    Wives an' sweethearts--prayin', waitin'--as we drive the river down.
+      (Oh, ye divils!)
+    God bless the eyes that shine for us when we boil into town."
+
+"God bless _your_ eyes, Jack, dear!" said Joe softly, and kissed her.
+The future lay clear and fair before them, a-flush with the rosy lights
+of youth and hope.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+By the terms of Joe's contract with Wismer & Holden, these astute
+millmen had agreed to pay cash for the logs on delivery. Joe held them
+to this, refusing acceptances at thirty and sixty days. He was thus at
+once in a position to reduce his liabilities and sustain his credit,
+which had been seriously strained, with his own bank.
+
+His mill was running at capacity. All day the air was vibrant with the
+hum of it, the thunder of the log carriages, the deep raucous drone of
+the big saws, the higher pitched voices of the smaller. All day a stream
+of shaggy, brown logs, prodded by pike poles, was swept upward in
+dripping procession on an endless chain, tossed on iron beds, flung
+against the saws, rolled on carriers as rough boards to other saws--to
+edgers, trimmers and planers--and disgorged from the farther end of the
+mill in a dozen grades of product to be carried to the piling yards and
+drying sheds. Day and night the smoke from burning sawdust in the huge,
+stack-like consumer poured upward to the sky.
+
+Thus the producing end of his business was satisfactory. Not less so
+were the sales. In addition to a particularly brisk local demand,
+Wright's activities had resulted in some excellent contracts not only
+for immediate, but for future delivery. There would be no lack of a
+market for every foot the mill could turn out. Also there was no car
+shortage. The tacit agreement which Locke had been able to obtain as
+part of the price of withdrawing his action was being held to rigidly.
+The firm could sell all its mills could cut and deliver all it could
+sell. Naturally Wright and Joe were pleased and congratulated each other
+upon the rosy outlook.
+
+"It looks as if we were over the hump," said Joe one afternoon. "Those
+are good contracts you landed. I want to show you that I appreciate all
+you have done. Left to myself I'd have been as helpless as a baby in
+this business."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Wright. "You pick up things pretty fast. I've
+been paid for whatever I've done. But apart from that I've been with
+this concern a good many years and your father always treated me well.
+Funny if I wouldn't do all I could for you. You've come pretty near
+making good so far. You made the big cut that your father planned to
+make and you brought the logs down. That's all he could have done, and I
+tell you not even Crooks knows the logging business better than he did.
+So far as showing your appreciation goes it isn't necessary--or, anyway,
+that can wait till you are in better shape. I'm not shouting for money
+the minute I see your head above water."
+
+"I know you're not, but at the end of the year we'll fix things up on a
+better basis," said Joe.
+
+While Joe was occupied with his business, Jack was busy, too. Mysterious
+packages were constantly arriving at Bill Crooks's home. As the wedding
+day drew near the patter of these became a downpour. Jack's friends gave
+luncheons in her honour, and she was "showered" with articles of alleged
+usefulness or ornament.
+
+She and Joe, sitting chatting one night in her den, heard the heavy,
+decided tread of the old lumber baron in the darkened hall. Suddenly
+there was a stumble, a wrathful bellow, and Bill Crooks's voice raised
+in insistent demand for the name of the thus-and-so-forth wretch who
+left boxes in the hall, mingled with a prophecy as to his ultimate fate.
+
+"What kind of 'fire' and 'nation' were you speaking of, dad?" asked Jack
+as he appeared in the door.
+
+"Never mind," growled Crooks, who was under the impression that his
+remarks had been sotto voce. "This house is being cluttered up with a
+bunch of junk. I've peeled a six-inch strip of hide clean off my shin.
+Who left that box out there?"
+
+"I think you did."
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I think you did. You took it from the expressman."
+
+"Huh?" snorted Crooks. "If I did I didn't leave it in the middle of the
+hall. I put it out of the way behind the hatrack. Somebody moved it out.
+That's only one thing. There's a hundred others. You've got enough truck
+to start a china shop or a jewellery store or a whitewear sale!"
+
+"I don't get married every summer," his daughter returned placidly. "We
+have to have things. And then our friends are good to us. I know one
+darling old grouch who gave me a big cheque. Remember what he told me to
+do with it?"
+
+"I didn't need to tell you. You can get away with a cheque without
+instructions. Never knew a woman who couldn't."
+
+"You told me to 'blow it' on myself--not to put a dollar of it into
+house furnishings."
+
+"Suppose I did! You don't need house furnishings. There's two houses
+ready furnished for you--this one and Kent's. How many blamed houses do
+you want to live in, anyway?"
+
+"Oh, Heavens, Joe, give him a cigar!" exclaimed Jack at the end of her
+patience. "He's going to be an awful crank of a father-in-law."
+
+Crooks took Joe's cigar and dropped into a chair, while Jack departed in
+search of refreshment; men being, as she declared, invariably hungry
+when they were not thirsty.
+
+"I've been thinking, Joe," said the old lumberman, "quite a bit about my
+business lately."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with it?" asked Joe in surprise, for Crooks's
+business, like his own, had been very good indeed.
+
+"Nothing's the matter with it," Crooks replied. "It's good--it's too
+good. I've run it for a long time, and now it's beginning to run me."
+
+"I don't quite understand."
+
+"It's this way," Crooks explained: "I'm getting on, and outside of Jack
+I've nobody. Now you're going to marry her. It had to be somebody, I
+suppose, and I'm glad it's you. Still, there's the business. It's mine,
+I made it and I like it--but it's beginning to drive me too much. I
+can't go away for a month or a week without being afraid things will be
+tied up in hard knots before I get back. If I had a man as good as
+Wright it might be different, but I haven't. I have to be on the job
+myself all the time, and I'm getting too old for that. I want to take it
+easy a little and get the most out of the years that are left me."
+
+"I see," said Joe as Crooks paused.
+
+"You'll know better how it is yourself thirty years from now," Crooks
+continued. "I've nobody but Jack. If the boys had lived they'd have been
+able to run the business and let me sit back and just give them a hand
+now and then. But they died." He was silent for a long moment. "I'll
+tell you something, Joe, you were the one thing I envied your father. I
+saw you growing up, a good, clean, healthy young fellow, with no bad
+habits to speak of--oh, I don't mean that you were any saint; I suppose
+you kicked up once in a while, same as any healthy young colt, but there
+was nothing vicious about you--and it seemed hard luck that out of my
+three boys one wasn't left me. Well, never mind that. Now all I've got
+will be Jack's when I get my time. And so I was thinking of making you a
+little proposition."
+
+"Yes," said Joe wondering what this was leading up to. "What is it, Mr.
+Crooks?"
+
+"I was wondering," Crooks pursued, "whether you'd care to combine our
+businesses?"
+
+Joe was thoughtful for a moment. His eyes narrowed a little, and his
+brows drew down in a slight frown. He looked at Crooks steadily. The old
+lumberman returned his gaze.
+
+"Is there anything behind this, sir?" Joe asked.
+
+"Behind it--how? You don't think I'm putting up a job to freeze you out,
+do you?"
+
+"No, not that. But are you making this proposition for Jack's sake? I
+mean, do you think I'd make a mess of my business if I ran it alone?
+Because if that's really the reason I'd like to show you."
+
+"If I thought you couldn't run your own business I wouldn't want your
+help to run mine," Crooks replied. "Mind you, I consider myself able to
+give you a few pointers. You've a lot to learn, but you're one of the
+young fellows who will learn. Some can't; others won't. I'd hate to see
+Jack marry a man I didn't think would make good. I'd tell him so mighty
+quick. No, I gave you my real reason."
+
+"It's a good proposition for me, Mr. Crooks," said Joe. "I'm for it, if
+we can arrange details. Were you thinking of forming a company?"
+
+"No, I wasn't," said Crooks. "I don't like companies--too much
+shenanigan about stock and directors and meetings. A company can't do a
+blamed thing without seeing a lawyer first. I own one business which
+will be Jack's and yours some day, and you own another. We just make a
+little 'greement to run 'em together and divide the profits; and we
+arrange who's to do what work--and there you are. Any time things don't
+run to suit us we split the blanket. If we tell Locke what we want he'll
+put it in shape in half an hour."
+
+"I'll do it," Joe agreed; "but I feel that I'm getting the best of the
+bargain in your experience."
+
+"My experience is all right," said Crooks, "but I can't hustle like I
+used to--or else I won't. You will, and I'll be able to tell you how.
+That makes it an even break. And then you've got Wright. I've wanted him
+or some one like him for years."
+
+"I feel that I owe Wright a good deal," said Joe. "He has really run the
+business end of the concern. I was thinking of giving him a share in it.
+Seems to me something like that is coming to him."
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say so. We'll take him in with us and give him an
+interest."
+
+"I want it to come out of my share."
+
+"No. He's going to work for me as much as for you. Wright is a part of
+your equipment and a big asset. Whatever interest he gets must come out
+of the whole business and not out of one end of it."
+
+They took their proposition in the rough to Locke, and that experienced
+adjuster of other men's perplexities proceeded to hammer it into working
+shape, finally producing an agreement, clear, concise and satisfactory.
+Thus the lumber firm of Crooks & Kent was born.
+
+A couple of days before the wedding, certain quarters of the town--and
+also those charged with the duty of enforcing a fair imitation of law
+and order therein--began to notice a sudden influx of strangers. They
+were for the most part big and very brown, and they walked with a
+truculent swagger and regarded the world through humorously insolent
+eyes. Also they held together clannishly, and for the most part--to the
+relief of the authorities--maintained themselves in a condition of near
+sobriety.
+
+"For if ye get too full," big Cooley explained to the bibulously
+inclined Chartrand, "ye miss the weddin'. An' it's not the likes of you
+is axed to one every day."
+
+"I'll be mos' awful dry, me!" Chartrand complained. He hailed little
+Narcisse Laviolette. "_Hola_, Narcisse, _mon vieux!_ Come on, tak'
+leetle drink wit' me. Come on, you beeg Cooley. We don't get dronk--_pas
+du tout_. We jus' feex ourself so we lak for sing leetle _chanson_."
+
+He hammered the bar with the heavy-bottomed little glass constructed in
+the interests of the house to hold one man's size drink and no more, and
+burst into alleged melody:
+
+    "Dat square-face-gin, she'll be ver' fine,
+    Some feller lak dat champagne wine--
+      But de bes' dam' drink w'hat I never saw
+      Come out of a bottle of _whiskey blanc_.
+    (O listen to me now, while I'll tol' you how!)
+    Dere was Joe Leduc an' me, Larry Frost an' Savigny,
+      Chevrier an' Prevost, Jimmy Judge an' Larribee,
+    Lamontagne an' Lajeunesse--mebbe fifty mans, I guess;
+    You would know de whole kaboodle if I ain't forget de res'.
+    We was drive upon dat reever an' we ron heem down _les Chats_,
+    An' den we hit dat Quyon where we buy dat _whiskey blanc_!"
+
+"Yell her out, _mes amis!_ Bus' dat roof!"
+
+    "Hooraw! hooraw! _pour le_ good ol' _whiskey blanc_!
+      She's gran' for mak love on, she's bully for fight,
+        She'll keep out dat col', an'----"
+
+"Shut up!" roared Cooley. "Now you listen here--you ain't goin' to show
+up drunk at the boss's weddin', puttin' the whole crew on the hog.
+Savvy? You're three parts full now. I'll sober ye, me buck, if it's wid
+me feet in yer face!"
+
+And the threat of Cooley, combined with the eloquent profanity of a
+self-constituted temperance committee, caused Chartrand to postpone his
+celebration. It was Cooley also who constituted himself an authority on
+social usage.
+
+"Bein' asked to this weddin'," said he, "the c'rect thing is to put up a
+present."
+
+"Sure!"
+
+"That's right, Cooley."
+
+"You bet!"
+
+"We'll do it right while we're about it," said the big man. "Here's ten
+dollars in me hat. Sweeten as she goes 'round, boys. Let's buy the boss
+an' his girl somethin' good--somethin' they won't be ashamed to keep in
+the front room an' tell their friends it come from the boys of Kent's
+big drive!"
+
+An hour later the proprietor of Falls City's leading jewelry store was
+somewhat startled by an invasion of half a dozen weather-beaten,
+rough-looking customers quite different from his ordinary patrons; and
+he nearly fainted when the spokesman told him that they were in search
+of a wedding present on which they were prepared to expend between three
+and four hundred dollars.
+
+In the end they chose a cabinet filled with silver, eying respectfully
+the dainty knives, forks, and spoons, and other articles of whose use
+they had small conception.
+
+"We want a name plate put on her," said Cooley, "showing a lad in river
+clothes standin' on a log wid a peavey in his fist; an' above that we
+want the date; an' underneath it, 'From Kent's River Crew.'"
+
+It is safe to say that never had the church, to whose support old Bill
+Crooks contributed more often than he attended it, held as motley a
+gathering as on the morning of the wedding of his daughter and Joe Kent.
+Big, brown men, painfully shaven, in aggressively new garments which
+cramped their strong muscles and rendered them awkward and ill at ease,
+occupied seats beside the members of Falls City's leading families, who
+eyed the intruders askance. And here and there, also ill at ease, were
+old men and women, dependents of William Crooks and friends of his
+daughter, whom they loved.
+
+Joe and his best man entered from the vestry; but there was a slight
+delay. They stood before the chancel waiting for the bride and her
+father.
+
+"The boss is nervous," Cooley commented to Haggarty in a low whisper.
+"Look at him shift on his feet. An' see the ears of him. Red!"
+
+"Small blame to him," Haggarty responded sympathetically. "I'll bet he'd
+rather be swappin' punches wid a man twice his own weight."
+
+But Jack entered on her father's arm--a dainty, queenly Jack, clad in
+bride-white, her eyes demurely downcast but the small head with the
+crown of glossy brown hair carried as proudly as ever.
+
+"An' I used to give her lumps out of the sugar bar'l!" said Jimmy Bowes,
+the fat old bull-cook, in sentimental reminiscence.
+
+"Purty as a little red wagon," said Haggarty with approval.
+
+"Mo' Gee! I leave home for dat myself!" commented little Narcisse
+Laviolette, who possessed a wife of double his own fighting weight and
+offspring of about the same combined avoirdupois. And Cooley, who
+overheard this tribute from the little teamster, took offence thereat.
+
+"Shut up, ye blasted little pea-soup!" he growled. "She's the boss's
+wife--or as good as. You remember that, and don't try to be funny!"
+
+"Who's try for be fonnee?" demanded Laviolette with indignation at this
+unjust interpretation of his well-meant speech. "You give me de swif'
+pain, you. Sacré dam! Some tam, bagosh, I ponch your beeg Irish mug!"
+
+"Sh!" rumbled Haggarty. "Can't ye quit yer dam' swearin' in a church?
+Shut up, the both of ye!"
+
+The ceremony, which was rapidly changing Jack Crooks into Mrs. Joe Kent,
+proceeded, finished. Kisses were showered on her, handshakes and slaps
+on the back on Joe. In the midst of these the latter caught sight of a
+group of weather-tanned faces in the centre of the church. Their owners
+were standing uncertainly, diffident, not caring to mingle with the more
+fashionably clad throng that clustered about the principals. Joe turned
+to his bride.
+
+"There's Cooley and Haggarty and a bunch of the boys of my river crew,
+Jack," he said. "They want to wish us luck, and they're too bashful to
+mix. Come on down and shake hands."
+
+"Of course," said Jack.
+
+With his bride on his arm Joe went down the aisle to the men of his
+drive, to have his right hand almost permanently disabled in the grips
+he received; but the pressure of the big hands that closed bashfully
+around Jack's slim fingers would not have crushed a butterfly. "Wishin'
+ye good luck an' happiness, ma'am," was the formula, but little varied.
+
+Into the midst of them came old Bill Crooks. "Come on, boys!" he
+exclaimed. "There's a wedding spread up at my house, and I want every
+man of you there to drink good luck to the bride--and to the new firm of
+Crooks & Kent. No holding back, now. Come along, everybody!"
+
+They came along, though most of them would have preferred to go down a
+bad piece of water on a single stick of pine, and their coming taxed the
+space of Crooks's dining-room--to say nothing of the commissariat and
+canteen--to the limit. They ate and drank solemnly, on their best
+behaviour and conscious of it, sipping the unaccustomed wines with
+reserved judgment.
+
+"What'll be a dose of this?" whispered Regan, eying his champagne glass
+with suspicion. "The waitin' gyurls fill it up whenever I empty it. This
+makes five I've had and I can't feel it yet. Belike it acts suddint. I
+wouldn't want to get full here."
+
+"Nor me," Cooley agreed. "They're all drinkin' it, an' none the worse.
+If they can stand it we can." He gulped down half a glass and thrust his
+tongue back and forth experimentally. "Champagne, hey? It has a puckery
+taste till it, but no rasp. It might be hard cider wid more fizz.
+There's no harm in it. I cud drink enough of it to float a log. Here's
+some lad speakin'. Listen to what he says."
+
+They heard the health of the bride proposed in customary language; Joe's
+reply, embarrassed, jerky, brief.
+
+"Speaking isn't Kent's strong point," a guest commented. Cooley glowered
+at him, resentful of the just criticism.
+
+"He can talk when he has anything to say, and he can curse _fine_!" he
+affirmed. He led vociferous cheers as Joe sat down, and cheered almost
+equally hard when Crooks concluded five minutes of pointed remarks in
+which he announced the formation of the new firm.
+
+But these cheers were as nothing to the leather-lunged roars that bade
+Jack and Joe farewell as they stepped into the carriage. With the cheers
+came showers of rice. Joe turned up his coat collar; but Jack laughed
+back through the fusillade of it, blowing kisses to her father, her girl
+friends, and the rivermen, impartially. And the memory of them stayed
+with the rough shantymen for years.
+
+The train which bore Joe and his bride on their wedding journey clanked
+slowly through the yards following the line of the river. As it looped
+around a curve they could see, looking backward from the rear platform
+of the last coach which they had to themselves, the mills of Bill Crooks
+and of Joe Kent each flying a flag from the topmost point, the silver of
+the flowing water checkered with the black lines of the long booms and
+the herds of brown logs inside them. In the mills not a wheel turned
+that day. But steam was in the boilers, for as they looked it poured
+white from the roofs of the engine houses and the bellowing howls of two
+fire sirens bade them a joyous farewell.
+
+Jack slipped her hand in Joe's.
+
+"Are you glad?"
+
+"Glad it's over? You bet I am!"
+
+"No--glad we're married?"
+
+"That's a nice question. And you know the answer."
+
+"Of course I do," she admitted happily. "I suppose a wedding trip is a
+fine thing. Anyway, it's conventional. But--I'll be glad to come back
+home."
+
+"Same here," he agreed. "There's lot to be done--a holy lot. I have to
+get right down to work. I want to take all the weight I can off your
+father's shoulders. That's up to me. Then, when you come to running two
+mills under one management, there must be all sorts of economies
+possible, if a fellow could only find out what they are. I don't want to
+let Wright do all the finding out for me. Yes, I'll be pretty busy."
+
+"Well, you like the work. That's the main thing."
+
+"That's so," he admitted. "I like it better all the time. I never knew
+what real fun was till I had to hustle for myself. A year ago I was no
+better than a big kid. I could feed myself and dress myself if somebody
+handed me the price, and that just about let me out. And at that I
+thought I was having a good time. A good time? Huh! Why, I didn't know I
+was alive. Oh, well ... we'll cut out business on this trip--not talk of
+it or think of it at all. Shall we?"
+
+"No--o. I like to talk about it. It makes me think I'm helping. If I
+were a man----"
+
+"I'm mighty glad you're not. Remember the time you wished you were a
+boy?"
+
+"That was before----"
+
+"Before what?"
+
+"You know very well. Before I knew you thought anything of me."
+
+"You are absolutely the best little girl in the world," he said with
+conviction. "I always loved you, Jack--ever since we were kids--only I
+didn't know it."
+
+She gave his arm a quick little understanding hug, with a new womanly
+pride in the hard, swelling muscles that met the pressure. They stood
+close together, watching the last silvery reach of the river, burnished,
+mirror-like, lustrous beneath the sloping afternoon sun. They had been
+born beside it; as children they had played on it, in it; and they loved
+it as a part of their lives. It was a treasure stream, bearing to them
+year after year the loot of the northern forests--the great, brown
+sticks of pine. Changeless and yet ever changing it never failed to
+charm. Ages old but ever young it held its children in the spell of its
+eternal life. And so as it vanished, shut out by a landscape that seemed
+to rush backward as the train gathered speed, their eyes and their
+thoughts clung to it; for by the river and with the pine their lifework
+lay.
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS TRACY'S CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur
+whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery.
+
+THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.
+
+A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating
+officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas.
+
+THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS.
+
+Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of
+cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance.
+
+THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.
+
+A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a
+buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops.
+
+THE PILLAR OF LIGHT.
+
+The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with
+exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants.
+
+THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg.
+
+The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars
+of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba.
+
+A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a
+pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne.
+
+THE WINGS OF THE MORNING.
+
+A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern setting, and a very
+pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of
+a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island.
+
+Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated.
+
+A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made
+love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation
+complicates the romance.
+
+THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow.
+
+Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.
+
+A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for
+big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the
+methods.
+
+CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis.
+
+Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn and others.
+
+A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans rat home and
+abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation.
+
+THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
+
+Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the
+best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess.
+
+THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brehner.
+
+Illustrated. Handsomely colored wrapper.
+
+A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during
+the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely
+eyes of a Frenchwoman.
+
+THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett.
+
+A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make
+women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances.
+
+Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS
+
+Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are
+making theatrical history.
+
+MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with
+scenes from the play.
+
+A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not
+forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final
+influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.
+
+THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.
+
+An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and
+love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast
+and gorgeous properties.
+
+THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew Wallace.
+
+A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary
+power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the
+warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic
+spectacle.
+
+TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard
+Chandler Christy.
+
+A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University
+student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of
+those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the
+season.
+
+YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F. R. Gruger
+and Henry Raleigh.
+
+A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of
+which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offence. As
+"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of
+money manipulation ever seen on the stage.
+
+THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe.
+
+Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary
+adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman
+of Leisure," it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+A CERTAIN RICH MAN. By William Allen White.
+
+A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its wide
+spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on the three
+women most intimately in his life. A splendid, entertaining American
+novel.
+
+IN OUR TOWN. By William Allen White. Illustrated by F. R. Gruger and W.
+Glackens.
+
+Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor, involving the
+town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the bohemian set, and
+many others. All humorously related and sure to hold the attention.
+
+NATHAN BURKE. By Mary S. Watts.
+
+The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose to prominence.
+Everyday humor of American rustic life permeates the book.
+
+THE HIGH HAND. By Jacques Futrelle. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
+
+A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the
+one side, and a "kid glove" politician on the other. A pretty girl,
+interested in both men, is the chief figure.
+
+THE BACKWOODSMEN. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated.
+
+Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage beauty of the
+wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst is well portrayed.
+
+YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS. By Herbert Quick.
+
+A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever folks take a
+trip through the National Park, and tell stories around camp fire at
+night. Brilliantly clever and original.
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY. By Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker.
+
+Illustrated by Hanson Booth.
+
+A young college professor, missing his steamer for Europe, has a
+romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and is enveloped
+in a big mystery.
+
+Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
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+
+
+
+
+TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson.
+
+Illustrated by C. Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch.
+
+Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and
+she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer
+amusement.
+
+THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a
+yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls.
+
+THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.
+
+A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of
+love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is
+stronger than worldly success.
+
+SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett.
+
+A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a
+Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet
+lead the young mistress into another romance.
+
+SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.
+
+A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome,
+strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A
+sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife."
+
+JOHN WARD. PREACHER. By Margaret Deland.
+
+The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a
+powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful
+wife to his own narrow creed.
+
+THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service.
+
+Illustrated by Maynard Dixon.
+
+One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the
+most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the
+Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original.
+
+Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
+
+Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax.
+
+MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys.
+
+A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and
+Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people
+against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney,
+to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause.
+
+The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd
+common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the
+situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so
+unflinchingly for clean politics.
+
+THE CROSSING. Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis.
+
+Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the
+harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the
+expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois,
+the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the
+treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal
+Government.
+
+CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn.
+
+A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author
+has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who
+rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all
+for the love of a woman.
+
+It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep
+motive.
+
+THE CELEBRITY. An Episode.
+
+An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities
+between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant
+type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than
+pen work. It is the purest, keenest fun--no such piece of humor has
+appeared for years: it is American to the core.
+
+THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christie.
+
+A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid
+power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are
+inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln
+figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that
+great, magnetic, lovable man, which has been drawn with evident
+affection and exceptional success.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+THE SILENT CALL. by Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the
+play.
+
+The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to
+England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West
+and a girl's pretty face.
+
+JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable.
+
+A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant
+in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial
+troubles as any romance of "after the war" days.
+
+MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E. W. Hornung.
+
+This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the
+toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing.
+
+FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S. M. Chase.
+
+Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's
+laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into
+the stock market, etc.
+
+OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund.
+
+A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures
+of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny, philosophical
+acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity.
+
+THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips.
+
+A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for
+thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in
+worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich--the wife in the
+most aristocratic European society--but at the price of their happiness.
+
+THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service.
+
+Illustrated by Maynard Dixon.
+
+One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the
+most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold
+seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is
+strikingly original.
+
+Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
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+TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White.
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+An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town,
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+MAUD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
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+A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a
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+THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
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+A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman
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+THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field. Illustrated in colors;
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