t at it any too
quick to suit us. But just now you get out of this camp, and you stay
out. You're an old man, and we don't want to be rough with you, but
you're biting off more than you can chew. Skedaddle!"

Reed hesitated, waving his long arms about, flail-like, as though to
begin a new oration.

"Now, do hop along," urged Orde. "We'll pay you any legitimate damages,
of course, but you can't expect to hang up a riverful of logs just on a
notion. And we're sick of you. Oh, hell, then! See here, you two; just
see that this man leaves camp."

Orde turned square on his heel. Reed, after a glance at the two huge
rivermen approaching, beat a retreat to his mill, muttering and wrathful
still.

"Well, good-bye, boys," said Daly, pulling on his overcoat; "I'll just
get along and bail the boys out of that village calaboose. I reckon
they've had a good night's rest. Be good!"

The fringe of trees to eastward showed clearly against the whitening
sky. Hundreds of birds of all kinds sang in an ecstasy. Another day
had begun. Already men with pike-poles were guiding the sullen timbers
toward the sluice-way.

IV

When Newmark awoke once more to interest in affairs, the morning was
well spent. On the river the work was going forward with the precision
of clockwork. The six-foot lowering of the sluice-way had produced a
fine current, which sucked the logs down from above. Men were busily
engaged in "sacking" them from the sides of the pond toward its centre,
lest the lowering water should leave them stranded. Below the dam
the jam crew was finding plenty to do in keeping them moving in the
white-water and the shallows. A fine sun, tempered with a prophetic
warmth of later spring, animated the scene. Reed had withdrawn to the
interior of his mill, and appeared to have given up the contest.

Some of the logs shot away down the current, running freely. To these
the crews were not required to pay any attention. With luck, a few of
the individual timbers would float ten, even twenty, miles before some
chance eddy or fortuitous obstruction would bring them to rest. Such
eddies and obstructions, however, drew a constant toll from the ranks of
the free-moving logs, so that always the volume of timbers floating
with the current diminished, and always the number of logs caught and
stranded along the sides of the river increased. To restore these to
the faster water was the especial province of the last and most expert
crew--th