n free. The rivermen
thereupon made their uncertain way back to shore, where they took the
river trail up stream again to their respective posts.

At noon they ate lunches they had brought with them in little canvas
bags, snatched before they left the rollways from a supply handy by the
cook. In the meantime the main crew were squatting in the lea of the
brush, devouring a hot meal which had been carried to them in wooden
boxes strapped to the backs of the chore boys. Down the river and up its
tributaries other crews, both in the employ of Newmark and Orde and of
others, were also pausing from their cold and dangerous toil. The river,
refreshed after its long winter, bent its mighty back to the great
annual burden laid upon it.

By the end of the second day the logs actually in the bed of the stream
had been shaken loose, and a large proportion of them had floated
entirely from sight. It now became necessary to break down the rollways
piled along the tops of the banks.

The evening of this day, however, Orde received a visit from Jim
Denning, the foreman of the next section below, bringing with him
Charlie, the cook of Daly's last year's drive. Leaving him by the larger
fire, Jim Denning drew his principal one side.

"This fellow drifted in to-night two days late after a drunk, and he
tells an almighty queer story," said he. "He says a crew of bad men
from the Saginaw, sixty strong, have been sent in by Heinzman. He says
Heinzman hired them to come over not to work, but just to fight and
annoy us."

"That so?" said Orde. "Well, where are they?"

"Don't know. But he sticks by his story, and tells it pretty straight."

"Bring him over, and let's hear it," said Orde.

"Hullo, Charlie!" he greeted the cook when the latter stood before him.
"What's this yarn Jim's telling me?"

"It's straight, Mr. Orde," said the cook. "There's a big crew brought in
from the Saginaw Waters to do you up. They're supposed to be over here
to run his drive, but really they're goin' to fight and raise hell. For
why would he want sixty men to break out them little rollways of his'n
up at the headwaters?"

"Is that where they've gone?" asked Orde like a flash.

"Yes, sir. And he only owns a 'forty' up there, and it ain't more'n half
cut, anyway."

"I didn't know he owned any."

"Yes, sir. He bought that little Johnson piece last winter. I been
workin' up there with a little two-horse crew since January. We didn't
put up more'n a co