y off their feet, rolled them over and over on the wet sawdust,
and finally jammed them both against the trestle, where it held them,
kicking and gasping for breath, in a choking cataract of water. The
pistols flew harmlessly into the air. For an instant the Fighting Forty
stared in paralyzed astonishment. Then a tremendous roar of laughter
saluted this easy vanquishment of a formidable enemy.

Daly and Baker were pounced upon and captured. There was no resistance.
They were too nearly strangled for that. Little Solly and old Vanderhoof
turned off the water in the fire hydrant and disconnected the hose they
had so effectively employed.

"There, damn you!" said Rollway Charley, jerking the millman to his
feet. "How do YOU like too much water? hey?"

The unexpected comedy changed the party's mood.

It was no longer a question of killing. A number broke into the store,
and shortly emerged, bearing pails of kerosene with which they deluged
the slabs on the windward side of the mill. The flames caught the
structure instantly. A thousand sparks, borne by the off-shore breeze,
fastened like so many stinging insects on the lumber in the yard.

It burned as dried balsam thrown on a camp fire. The heat of it drove
the onlookers far back in the village, where in silence they watched the
destruction. From behind locked doors the inhabitants watched with them.

The billow of white smoke filled the northern sky. A whirl of gray wood
ashes, light as air, floated on and ever on over Superior. The site
of the mill, the squares where the piles of lumber had stood, glowed
incandescence over which already a white film was forming.

Daly and his man were slapped and cuffed hither and thither at the men's
will. Their faces bled, their bodies ached as one bruise.

"That squares us," said the men. "If we can't cut this year, neither kin
you. It's up to you now!"

Then, like a destroying horde of locusts, they gutted the office and the
store, smashing what they could not carry to the fire. The dwellings and
saloons they did not disturb. Finally, about noon, they kicked their two
prisoners into the river, and took their way stragglingly back along the
right-of-way.

"I surmise we took that town apart SOME!" remarked Shorty with
satisfaction.

"I should rise to remark," replied Kerlie. Big Junko said nothing, but
his cavernous little animal eyes glowed with satisfaction. He had been
the first to lay hands on Daly; he had helped to car