o commence paying operations.

The logging railroad was just then beginning to gain recognition. A few
miles of track, a locomotive, and a number of cars consisting uniquely
of wheels and "bunks," or cross beams on which to chain the logs, and a
fairly well-graded right-of-way comprised the outfit. Its use obviated
the necessity of driving the river--always an expensive operation.
Often, too, the decking at the skidways could be dispensed with; and the
sleigh hauls, if not entirely superseded for the remote districts, were
entirely so in the country for a half mile on either side of the
track, and in any case were greatly shortened. There obtained, too, the
additional advantage of being able to cut summer and winter alike. Thus,
the plant once established, logging by railroad was not only easier but
cheaper. Of late years it has come into almost universal use in big jobs
and wherever the nature of the country will permit. The old-fashioned,
picturesque ice-road sleigh-haul will last as long as north-woods
lumbering,--even in the railroad districts,--but the locomotive now does
the heavy work.

With the capital to be obtained from the following winter's product,
Thorpe hoped to be able to establish a branch which should run from a
point some two miles behind Camp One, to a "dump" a short distance
above the mill. For this he had made all the estimates, and even the
preliminary survey. He was therefore the more grievously disappointed,
when Wallace Carpenter made it impossible for him to do so.

He was sitting in the mill-office one day about the middle of July.
Herrick, the engineer, had just been in. He could not keep the engine in
order, although Thorpe knew that it could be done.

"I've sot up nights with her," said Herrick, "and she's no go. I think
I can fix her when my head gets all right. I got headachy lately. And
somehow that last lot of Babbit metal didn't seem to act just right."

Thorpe looked out of the window, tapping his desk slowly with the end of
a lead pencil.

"Collins," said he to the bookkeeper, without raising his voice or
altering his position, "make out Herrick's time."

The man stood there astonished.

"But I had hard luck, sir," he expostulated. "She'll go all right now, I
think."

Thorpe turned and looked at him.

"Herrick," he said, not unkindly, "this is the second time this summer
the mill has had to close early on account of that engine. We have
supplied you with everything you a