member--"

"Oh, I do, I do!" she broke in earnestly. "Every moment of my waking and
sleeping hours I remember him. Always I keep his little soul before me
as a light on a shrine. But to-night--oh! to-night I could laugh and
shout aloud like the people in the Bible, with clapping of hands." She
snuggled herself close to Orde with a little murmur of happiness. "I
think of all the beautiful things," she whispered, "and of the noble
things, and of the great things. He is going to be sturdy, like his
father; a wonderful boy, a boy all of fire--"

"Like his mother," said Orde.

She smiled up at him. "I want him just like you, dear," she pleaded.

XXVI

Three days later the jam of the drive reached the dam at Redding.
Orde took Carroll downtown in the buckboard. There a seat by the
dam-watcher's little house was given her, back of the brick factory
buildings next the power canal, whence for hours she watched the slow
onward movement of the sullen brown timbers, the smooth, polished-steel
rush of the waters through the chute, the graceful certain movements of
the rivermen. Some of the latter were brought up by Orde and introduced.
They were very awkward, and somewhat embarrassed, but they all looked
her straight in the eye, and Carroll felt somehow that back of their
diffidence they were quite dispassionately appraising her. After a few
gracious speeches on her part and monosyllabic responses on theirs, they
blundered away. In spite of the scant communication, these interviews
left something of a friendly feeling on both sides.

"I like your Jim Denning," she told Orde; "he's a nice, clean-cut
fellow. And Mr. Bourke," she laughed. "Isn't he funny with his fierce
red beard and his little eyes? But he simply adores you."

Orde laughed at the idea of the Rough Red's adoring anybody.

"It's so," she insisted, "and I like him for it--only I wish he were a
little cleaner."

She thought the feats of "log-riding" little less than wonderful,
and you may be sure the knowledge of her presence did not discourage
spectacular display. Finally, Johnny Challan, uttering a loud whoop,
leaped aboard a log and went through the chute standing bolt upright. By
a marvel of agility, he kept his balance through the white-water below,
and emerged finally into the lower waters still proudly upright, and dry
above the knees.

Carroll had arisen, the better to see.

"Why," she cried aloud, "it's marvellous! Circus riding is nothing to