lash of
light from the roadside water, these were all he had room for among his
perceptions. He was content to enjoy them, and to anticipate drowsily
the keen pleasure of seeing Carroll again. In the rush of the jam he had
heard nothing from her. For all he knew she and Bobby might have been
among the spectators on the bank; he had hardly once left the river. It
did not seem to him strange that Carroll should not have been there to
welcome him after the struggle was over. Rarely did she get to the booms
in ordinary circumstances. This episode of the big jam was, after all,
nothing but part of the day's work to Orde; a crisis, exaggerated it is
true, but like many other crises a man must meet and cope with on the
river. There was no reason why Carroll should drive the twelve miles
between Monrovia and the booms, unless curiosity should take her.

As the team left the marsh road for the county turnpike past the mills
and lumberyards, Orde shook himself fully awake. He began to review
the situation. As Newmark had accurately foreseen, he came almost
immediately to a realisation that the firm would not be able to meet
the notes given to Heinzman. Orde had depended on the profits from the
season's drive to enable him to make up the necessary amount. Those
profits would be greatly diminished, if not wiped out entirely, by the
expenses, both regular and irregular, incurred in holding the jam; by
the damage suits surely to be brought by the owners of the piles, trees,
pile-drivers and other supplies and materials requisitioned in the heat
of the campaign; and by the extra labour necessary to break out the jam
and to sort the logs according to their various destinations.

"I'll have to get an extension of time," said Orde to himself. "Of
course Joe will let me have more time on my own personal note to the
firm. And Heinzman surely ought to--I saved a lot of his logs in that
jam. And if he doesn't want to, I guess an offer of a little higher
interest will fetch him."

Ordinarily the state of affairs would have worried him, for it was
exactly the situation he had fought against so hard. But now he was too
wearied in soul and body. He dismissed the subject from his mind. The
horses, left almost to themselves, lapsed into a sleepy jog. After a
little they passed the bridge and entered the town. Warm spicy odours of
pine disengaged themselves from the broken shingles and sawdust of the
roadway, and floated upward through the hot su