culties across the logger's path, and had
to be hauled from nine to fifteen miles to the river. Both Morrison and
Daly groaned in spirit. Supplies would have to be toted in to last the
entire winter, for when the snow came, communication over fifty miles of
forest road would be as good as cut off. Whom could they trust among the
lesser foremen of their woods force? Whom could they spare among the
greater?

At this juncture they called to them Tim Shearer, their walking boss
and the greatest riverman in the State.

"You'll have to 'job' her," said Tim, promptly.

"Who would be hired at any price to go up in that country on a ten-mile
haul?" demanded Daly, sceptically.

"Jest one man," replied Tim, "an' I know where to find him."

He returned with an individual at the sight of whom the partners glanced
toward each other in doubt and dismay. But there seemed no help for it.
A contract was drawn up in which the firm agreed to pay six dollars a
thousand, merchantable scale, for all saw-logs banked at a rollway to be
situated a given number of miles from the forks of Cass Branch, while on
his side James Bourke, better known as the Rough Red, agreed to put in
at least three and one-half million feet. After the latter had scrawled
his signature he lurched from the office, softly rubbing his hairy
freckled hand where the pen had touched it.

"That means a crew of wild Irishmen," said Morrison.

"And _that_ means they'll just slaughter the pine," added Daly. "They'll
saw high and crooked, they'll chuck the tops--who are we going to send
to scale for 'em?"

Morrison sighed. "I hate to do it: there's only Fitz can make it go."

So then they called to them another of their best men, named
FitzPatrick, and sent him away alone to protect the firm's interests in
the depths of the wilderness.

The Rough Red was a big broad-faced man with eyes far apart and a bushy
red beard. He wore a dingy mackinaw coat, a dingy black-and-white
checked-flannel shirt, dingy blue trousers, tucked into high socks and
lumberman's rubbers. The only spot of colour in his costume was the
flaming red sash of the _voyageur_ which he passed twice around his
waist. When at work his little wide eyes flickered with a baleful,
wicked light, his huge voice bellowed through the woods in a torrent of
imprecations and commands, his splendid muscles swelled visibly even
under his loose blanket-coat as he wrenched suddenly and savagely at
some man's stubborn c