forced to bother with your logs, and
you're lucky to get out so easy. If I turn your whole drive into the
river, you'll lose more than half of it outright, and it'll cost you a
heap to salvage the rest. And what's more, I'll turn 'em in before you
can get hold of a pile-driver. I'll sort night and day," he bluffed,
"and by to-morrow morning you won't have a stick of timber above my
booms." He laughed again. "You want to get down to business almighty
sudden."

When finally Heinzman had driven sadly away, and the whole drive, "H"
logs included, was pouring into the main boom, Orde stretched his arms
over his head in a luxury of satisfaction.

"That just about settles that campaign," he said to Newmark.

"Oh, no, it doesn't," replied the latter decidedly.

"Why?" asked Orde, surprised. "You don't imagine he'll do anything
more?"

"No, but I will," said Newmark.

XXVII

Early in the fall the baby was born. It proved to be a boy. Orde,
nervous as a cat after the ordeal of doing nothing, tiptoed into the
darkened room. He found his wife weak and pale, her dark hair framing
her face, a new look of rapt inner contemplation rendering even more
mysterious her always fathomless eyes. To Orde she seemed fragile,
aloof, enshrined among her laces and dainty ribbons. Hardly dared he
touch her when she held her hand out to him weakly, but fell on his
knees beside the bed and buried his face in the clothes. She placed a
gentle hand caressingly on his head.

So they remained for some time. Finally he raised his eyes. She held her
lips to him. He kissed them.

"It seems sort of make-believe even yet, sweetheart," she smiled at him
whimsically, "that we have a real, live baby all of our own."

"Like other people," said Orde.

"Not like other people at all!" she disclaimed, with a show of
indignation.

Grandma Orde brought the newcomer in for Orde's inspection. He looked
gravely down on the puckered, discoloured bit of humanity with some
feeling of disappointment, and perhaps a faint uneasiness. After a
moment he voiced the latter.

"Is--do you think--that is--" he hesitated, "does the doctor say he's
going to be all right?"

"All right!" cried Grandma Orde indignantly. "I'd like to know if he
isn't all right now! What in the world do you expect of a new-born
baby?"

But Carroll was laughing softly to herself on the bed. She held out her
arms for the baby, and cuddled it close to her breast.

"He's a little da