o some other sensation.

"Joe," said Orde to his partner, "how about all this talk? Is there
really anything in it? You haven't gone in for that business, have you?"

Newmark stretched his arms wearily.

"Press bought up," he replied. "I know for a fact that old Stanford got
five hundred dollars from some of the Heinzman interests. I could have
swung him back for an extra hundred, but it wasn't worth while. They
howl bribery at us to distract attention from their own performances."

With this evasive reply Orde contented himself. Whether it satisfied
him or whether he was loath to pursue the subject further it would be
impossible to say.

"It's cost us plenty, anyway," he said, after a moment. "The
proposition's got a load on it. It will take us a long time to get
out of debt. The river driving won't pay quite so big as we thought it
would," he concluded, with a rueful little laugh.

"It will pay plenty well enough," replied Newmark decidedly, "and it
gives us a vantage point to work from. You don't suppose we are going to
quit at river driving, do you? We want to look around for some timber
of our own; there's where the big money is. And perhaps we can buy a
schooner or two and go into the carrying trade--the country's alive with
opportunity. Newmark and Orde means something to these fellows now. We
can have anything we want, if we just reach out for it."

His thin figure, ordinarily slightly askew, had straightened; his
steel-gray, impersonal eyes had lit up behind the bowed glasses and were
seeing things beyond the wall at which they gazed. Orde looked up at him
with a sudden admiration.

"You're the brains of this concern," said he.

"We'll get on," replied Newmark, the fire dying from his eyes.

XXIX

In the course of the next eight years Newmark and Orde floated high on
that flood of apparent prosperity that attends a business well conceived
and passably well managed. The Boom and Driving Company made money,
of course, for with the margin of fifty per cent or thereabouts
necessitated by the temporary value of the improvements, good years
could hardly fail to bring good returns. This, it will be remembered,
was a stock company. With the profits from that business the two men
embarked on a separate copartnership. They made money at this, too, but
the burden of debt necessitated by new ventures, constantly weighted
by the heavy interest demanded at that time, kept affairs on the ragged
edge.

I