For success he had bartered her, in the
noblest, the loftiest spirit of devotion. He refused to believe that
devotion fanatical; he refused to believe that he had been wrong. In the
still darkness of the night he would rise and steal to the edge of the
dully roaring stream. There, his eyes blinded and his throat choked with
a longing more manly than tears, he would reach out and smooth the round
rough coats of the great logs.

"We'll do it!" he whispered to them--and to himself. "We'll do it! We
can't be wrong. God would not have let us!"

Chapter LII

Wallace Carpenter's search expedition had proved a failure, as Thorpe
had foreseen, but at the end of the week, when the water began to
recede, the little beagles ran upon a mass of flesh and bones. The man
was unrecognizable, either as an individual or as a human being. The
remains were wrapped in canvas and sent for interment in the cemetery at
Marquette. Three of the others were never found. The last did not come
to light until after the drive had quite finished.

Down at the booms the jam crew received the drive as fast as it came
down. From one crib to another across the broad extent of the river's
mouth, heavy booms were chained end to end effectually to close the exit
to Lake Superior. Against these the logs caromed softly in the slackened
current, and stopped. The cribs were very heavy with slanting, instead
of square, tops, in order that the pressure might be downwards instead
of sidewise. This guaranteed their permanency. In a short time the
surface of the lagoon was covered by a brown carpet of logs running
in strange patterns like windrows of fallen grain. Finally, across the
straight middle distance of the river, appeared little agitated specks
leaping back and forth. Thus the rear came in sight and the drive was
all but over.

Up till now the weather had been clear but oppressively hot for this
time of year. The heat had come suddenly and maintained itself well. It
had searched out with fierce directness all the patches of snow lying
under the thick firs and balsams of the swamp edge, it had shaken loose
the anchor ice of the marsh bottoms, and so had materially aided the
success of the drive by increase of water. The men had worked for the
most part in undershirts. They were as much in the water as out of it,
for the icy bath had become almost grateful. Hamilton, the journalist,
who had attached himself definitely to the drive, distributed bunche