ive of the tattered socks and shirts hanging over the stove.

The room was chill and cold and gray. It had only two small windows. Its
doors were low. Even Mrs. Field was forced to stoop in entering. This
made it seem more like a den. There were roller towels in the corner,
and washbasins, and a grindstone, which made it seem like a barn. It
was, in fact, more cheerless than the barn, and less wholesome.

"Doesn't that hay in the bunks get a--a--sometimes?" asked Field.

"Well, yes, I shouldn't wonder, though the men are pretty strict about
that. They keep pretty free from that, I think. However, I shouldn't
want to run no river chances on the thing myself." Ridgeley smiled at
Mrs. Field's shudder of horror.

"Is this the place?" The men laughed. She had asked that question so
many times before.

"Yes, _this_ is where Mr. Williams hangs out.--Say, Field, you'll need
to make some new move to hold your end up against Williams."

Mrs. Field felt hurt and angry at his rough joke. In the dim corner a
cough was heard, and a yellow head raised itself over the bunk board
ghastily. His big blue eyes fixed themselves on the lovely woman and he
wore a look of childish wonder.

"Hello, Gus--didn't see you. What's the matter--sick?"

"Yah, ai baen hwick two days. Ai tank ai lack to hav doketer."

"All right, I'll send him up. What seems the matter?"

As they talked, Mrs. Field again chilled with the cold gray
comfortlessness of it all; to be sick in such a place! The strange
appearance of the man out of his grim corner was startling. She was glad
when they drove out into the woods again, where the clear sunshine fell,
and the pines stood against the blazing winter sky motionless as iron
trees. Her pleasure in the ride was growing less. To her delicate sense
this life was sordid, not picturesque. She wondered how Williams endured
it. They arrived at No. 8 just as the men were trailing down the road
to work after eating their dinner. Their gay-colored jackets of Mackinac
wool stood out like trumpet notes in the prevailing white and blue and
bronze green.

The boss and the scaler came out and met them, and after introductions
they went into the shanty to dinner. The cook was a deft young
Norwegian--a clean, quick, gentlemanly young fellow with a fine brown
mustache. He cleared a place for them at one end of the long table, and
they sat down.

It was a large camp, but much like the others. On the table were the
same cheap