called him Roaring Dick.

For upward of fifteen years he had been woods foreman for Morrison &
Daly, the great lumber firm of the Beeson Lake district. That would make
him about thirty-eight years old. He did not look it. His firm thought
everything of him in spite of the fact that his reputation made it
exceedingly difficult to hire men for his camps. He had the name of a
"driver." But this little man, in some mysterious way of his own, could
get in the logs. There was none like him. About once in three months he
would suddenly appear, worn and haggard, at Beeson Lake, where he would
drop into an iron bed, which the Company maintained for that especial
purpose. Tim Brady, the care-taker, would bring him food at stated
intervals. After four days of this, he would as suddenly disappear into
the forest, again charged with the vital, restless energy which kept him
on his feet fourteen hours a day until the next break down. When he
looked directly at you, this nerve-force seemed to communicate itself to
you with the physical shock of an impact.

Richard Darrell usually finished banking his season's cut a month
earlier than anybody else. Then he drew his pay at Beeson Lake, took the
train for Bay City, and set out to have a good time. Whiskey was its
main element. On his intensely nervous organisation it acted like
poison. He would do the wildest things. After his money was all spent,
he started up river for the log-drive, hollow-eyed, shaking. In
twenty-four hours he was himself again, dominant, truculent, fixing his
brown chipmunk eyes on the delinquents with the physical shock of an
impact, coolly balancing beneath the imminent ruin of a jam.

Silver Jack, on the other hand, was not nervous at all, but very tall
and strong, with bronze-red skin, and flaxen white hair, mustache and
eyebrows. The latter peculiarity earned him his nickname. He was at all
times absolutely fearless and self-reliant in regard to material
conditions, but singularly unobservant and stupid when it was a question
of psychology. He had been a sawyer in his early experience, but later
became a bartender in Muskegon. He was in general a good-humoured
animal enough, but fond of a swagger, given to showing off, and
exceedingly ugly when his passions were aroused.

His first hard work, after arriving in Bay City, was, of course, to
visit the saloons. In one of these he came upon Richard Darrell. The
latter was enjoying himself noisily by throwing win