"After what Leslie has got through to-night, I'll take the farthest
place in the line from him to-morrow," he said. "If his nerves aren't
unusually good it seems quite possible that there'll be more than a
setter peppered."

CHAPTER VII

THE BREAKING OF THE JAM

It was late one moonlight night when Geoffrey Thurston sat inside his
double-skinned tent which was pitched above a river of British
Columbia. A few good furs checkered the spruce twigs which served as a
carpet, and the canvas dwelling was both commodious and comfortable. A
bright brass lamp hung from the ridge pole, a nickeled clock ticked
cheerily upon a hanging shelf behind the neat camp cot, while the rest
of the well-made furniture betokened a degree of prosperity. One of
Savine's junior assistants, sent up there in an emergency to replace an
older man, sat close by, and, because he dwelt in a bark shanty, envied
Thurston his tent.

Geoffrey was studying a bridge-work tracing that lay unrolled upon his
knees.

"I can only repeat what I said months ago. The wing slide of the log
pass is too short and the angle over sharp," he said, glancing at the
jam. "An extra big log will jam there some day and imperil the whole
bridge. Did you send a man down to keep watch to-night?"

"The slide is in accordance with the Roads and Trails specification,"
answered the young man, airily. "There was no reason why we should do
more work than they asked for. You're an uneasy man, Thurston, always
looking for trouble, and I've had enough of late over the rascally
hoboes who, when they feel inclined, condescend to work for me. Oh,
yes! I posted the lookout as soon as I heard Davies was running his
saw logs down."

Thurston hitched his chair forward and threw the door-flap back so that
he could look out into the night. The tent stood perched on the
hillside. Long ranks of climbing pines stretched upwards from it to
the scarped rocks which held up the snow-fields on the shoulders of the
mighty peaks above. Thin white mist and the roar of water rose up from
the shadowy gorge below, but in one place, where the rock walls which
hemmed it in sloped down, a gossamer-like structure spanned the chasm.
This was a wagon-road bridge Julius Savine, the contractor of large
interests and well-known name, was building for the Provincial
authorities, and on their surveyor's recommendation he had sub-let to
Thurston the construction of a pass through which saw-logs