ook one look, then made his way across to the other side and
down to the mill. Bob followed. The little sawmill was going full blast
under the handling of three men and a boy. Everything was done in the
most primitive manner, by main strength, awkwardness, and old-fashioned
tools.

"Who's boss?" yelled Larsen against the clang of the mill.

A slow, black-bearded man stepped forward.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Our drive's hung up against your boom," yelled Larsen.

The man raised his hand and the machinery was suddenly stilled.

"So I perceive," said he.

"Your boom-piles are drove too far out in the stream."

"I don't know about that," objected the mossback.

"I do," insisted Larsen. "Nobody on earth could keep from jamming, the
way you got things fixed."

"That's none of my business," said the man steadily.

"Well, we'll have to take out that fur clump of piles to get our jam
broke."

"I don't know about that," repeated the man.

Larsen apparently paid no attention to this last remark, but tramped
back to the jam. There he ordered a couple of men out with axes, and
others with tackle. But at that moment the three men and the boy
appeared. They carried three shotguns and a rifle.

"That's about enough of that," said the bearded man, quietly. "You let
my property alone. I don't want any trouble with you men, but I'll blow
hell out of the first man that touches those piles. I've had about
enough of this riverhog monkey-work."

He looked as though he meant business, as did his companions. When the
rivermen drew back, he took his position atop the disputed clump of
piles, his shotgun across his knees.

The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly uncertain.

"I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You wait."

"Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss no phase of
this new species of warfare.

"What you going to do?" he asked Larsen when they were once on the
trail.

"I don't know," confessed the older man, rubbing his cap. "I'm just
goin' to see some lawyer, and then I'm goin' to telegraph the Company. I
wish Darrell was in charge. I don't know what to do. You can't expect
those boys to run a chance of gittin' a hole in 'em."

"Do you believe they'd shoot?" asked Bob.

"I believe so. It's a long chance, anyhow."

But in Twin Falls they received scant sympathy and encouragement. The
place was distinctly bucolic, and as such opposed instinctively to