now with authority, impatiently.

"Hurry aboard, Mike; we're waiting."

The logger rose, waved his hand airily, and turned as if to retreat down
the wharf. The other caught him by the arm and spun him face to the
slip.

"Come on, Slater," he said evenly. "I have no time to fool around."

The logger drew back his fist. He was a fairly big man. But if he had in
mind to deal a blow, it failed, for the other ducked and caught him with
both arms around the middle. He lifted the logger clear of the wharf,
hoisted him to the level of his breast, and heaved him down the slip as
one would throw a sack of bran.

The man's body bounced on the incline, rolled, slid, tumbled, till at
length he brought up against the boat's guard, and all that saved him a
ducking was the prompt extension of several stout arms, which clutched
and hauled him to the flush after deck. He sat on his haunches,
blinking. Then he laughed. So did the man at the top of the slip and the
lumberjacks clustered on the boat. Homeric laughter, as at some
surpassing jest. But the roar of him who had taken that inglorious
descent rose loudest of all, an explosive, "Har--har--har!"

He clambered unsteadily to his feet, his mouth expanded in an amiable
grin.

"Hey, Jack," he shouted. "Maybe y' c'n throw m' blankets down too, while
y'r at it."

The man at the slip-head caught up the roll, poised it high, and cast it
from him with a quick twist of his body. The woolen missile flew like a
well-put shot and caught its owner fair in the breast, tumbling him
backwards on the deck--and the Homeric laughter rose in double strength.
Then the boat began to swing, and the man ran down and leaped the
widening space as she drew away from her mooring.

Stella Benton watched the craft gather way, a trifle shocked, her breath
coming a little faster. The most deadly blows she had ever seen struck
were delivered in a more subtle, less virile mode, a curl of the lip, an
inflection of the voice. These were a different order of beings. This,
she sensed was man in a more primitive aspect, man with the conventional
bark stripped clean off him. And she scarcely knew whether to be amused
or frightened when she reflected that among such her life would
presently lie. Charlie had written that she would find things and people
a trifle rougher than she was used to. She could well believe that.
But--they were picturesque ruffians.

Her interested gaze followed the camp tender as it swung