nks and carries everything before
it.

The river that was expected to flood and carry down the logs of the
Manitoba Lumber Company generally drove them into a large lagoon where
the saw-mills belonging to the company stood.

February was a short month, but the weather held good so that the men
got out more timber that month than in January. The banks of the river
were completely hidden under immense roll-ways of pine logs, so arranged
that the moment the water rose the logs lying in the edge of the water
would float out and that would gradually roll the entire mass of lumber
into the water.

The first few days in March were very warm, and cracklings of ice could
be heard distinctly through the woods. The men feared that work for the
season was over, for, with the thaw, the work of hauling timber would
have to cease. Still, they hoped that a period of cold would come on top
of the thaw and that would just about permit them to finish the area of
forest timber that had been mapped out in the Fall.

Mike had decided to abandon his trip to the North Woods for hunting and
trapping, for he figured out that he could make more money by accepting
the bosses' offer. This money was clear profit and he could put it in
the bank at Winnipeg to await his old age when he could work no more.

But Mike set traps and did some hunting about the woods and kept the
camp supplied with game and venison. He had one large trap set several
miles from camp, but as yet had not caught anything in it.

The day before the warm spell set in, Mike sniffed the air and took note
of various signs in the woods that told him a thaw was on the road.
Consequently he knew that, if it was of a long enough period of time,
many of the animals that sleep during the winter months would be tempted
to come out and look about.

Finding nothing to eat, they would be led to seek farther afield, for
they would be hungry after a long sleep.

Mike loped over to his traps that afternoon, and, having found the
large one in good order, he baited it and arranged it so deftly that not
one bit of the iron showed through the twigs and leaves.

As he expected, the thaw began that night and the temperature became
higher each day until the trees seemed about to burst into blossom.

Mike didn't visit the trap the first day of the thaw, but on the
afternoon of the second day he hurried out to cross the forest in the
direction of his traps. Halfway there, he stopped and looked