wilderness. Deer left the country. Partridges crouched trailing
under the snow. All the weak and timid creatures of the woods shrank
into concealment and silence before these fierce woods-marauders with
the glaring famine-struck eyes.

Injin Charley found his traps robbed. In return he constructed
deadfalls, and dried several scalps. When spring came, he would send
them out for the bounty In the night, from time to time, the horses
would awake trembling at an unknown terror. Then the long weird howl
would shiver across the starlight near at hand, and the chattering man
who rose hastily to quiet the horses' frantic kicking, would catch a
glimpse of gaunt forms skirting the edge of the forest.

And the little beagles were disconsolate, for their quarry had fled.
In place of the fan-shaped triangular trail for which they sought, they
came upon dog-like prints. These they sniffed at curiously, and then
departed growling, the hair on their backbones erect and stiff.

Chapter XXXII

By the end of the winter some four million feet of logs were piled in
the bed or upon the banks of the stream. To understand what that
means, you must imagine a pile of solid timber a mile in length. This
tremendous mass lay directly in the course of the stream. When the
winter broke up, it had to be separated and floated piecemeal down the
current. The process is an interesting and dangerous one, and one of
great delicacy. It requires for its successful completion picked men of
skill, and demands as toll its yearly quota of crippled and dead. While
on the drive, men work fourteen hours a day, up to their waists in water
filled with floating ice.

On the Ossawinamakee, as has been stated, three dams had been erected
to simplify the process of driving. When the logs were in right
distribution, the gates were raised, and the proper head of water
floated them down.

Now the river being navigable, Thorpe was possessed of certain rights on
it. Technically he was entitled to a normal head of water, whenever he
needed it; or a special head, according to agreement with the parties
owning the dam. Early in the drive, he found that Morrison & Daly
intended to cause him trouble. It began in a narrows of the river
between high, rocky banks. Thorpe's drive was floating through
close-packed. The situation was ticklish. Men with spiked boots ran here
and there from one bobbing log to another, pushing with their peaveys,
hurrying one log, retarding