a
constantly recurring contest of beauty. Afar off, logs were sliding in
swift succession down the skidways, to lose themselves in the waters,
then to bob along toward the current that would carry them to the
flume. The jays cried and quarreled in the aspens; in a little bay, an
old beaver made his first sally of the evening, and by angry slaps of
his tail warned the rest of the colony that humans were near.
Distantly, from down the bubbling stream which led from the lake, there
sounded the snarl of giant saws and the hum of machinery, where, in two
great mills, the logs traveled into a manufactured state through a
smooth-working process that led from "jacker" to "kicker", thence to
the platforms and the shotgun carriages; into the mad rush of the bank
saws, while the rumbling rolls caught the offal to cart it away; then
surging on, to the edgers and trimmers and kilns. Great trucks rumbled
along the roadways. Faintly a locomotive whistled, as the switch
engine from Tabernacle clanked to the mills for the make-up of its
daily stub-train of lumber cars. But the attention of Ba'tiste Renaud
was on none of these. Out in a safe portion of the lake was a boat,
and within it sat two persons, a man and a woman, their rods flashing
as they made their casts, now drawing slowly backward for another whip
of the fly, now bending with the swift leap of a captive trout. And he
watched them with the eyes of a father looking upon children who have
fulfilled his every hope, children deeply, greatly beloved.

As for the man and the woman, they laughed and glanced at each other as
they cast, or shouted and shrilled with the excitement of the leaping
trout as the fly caught fair and the struggle of the rod and reel
began, to end with another flopping form in the creel, another delicacy
for the table at camp. But at last the girl leaned back, and her fly
trailed disregarded in the water.

"Barry," she asked, "what day's to-morrow?"

"Wednesday," he said, and cast again in the direction of a dead,
jutting tree, the home of more than one three-pounder. She pouted.

"Of course it's Wednesday. But what else?"

"I don't know. Let me see. Twentieth, isn't it?"

This time her rod flipped in mock anger.

"Barry," she commanded. "What day is tomorrow?"

He looked at her blankly.

"I give it up," came after deep thought. "What day is to-morrow?"

She pressed tight her lips, striving bravely for sternness. But in
vain. An