side room, strangely silent by contrast to the rest, where the
filer did his minute work. He was an old man, the filer, with
steel-rimmed, round spectacles, and he held Bob some time explaining how
important his position was.

They emerged finally to the broad, open platform with the radiating
tram-car tracks. Here Bob saw the finished boards trundled out on the
moving rollers to be transferred to the cars.

Mason left him. He made his way slowly back toward the office, noticing
on the way the curious pairs of huge wheels beneath which were slung the
heavy timbers or piles of boards for transportation at the level of the
ground.

At the edge of the lumber piles Bob looked back. The noises of industry
were in his ears; the blur of industry before his eyes; the clean, sweet
smell of pine in his nostrils. He saw clearly the row of ships and the
many-jointed serpent of boards making its way to the hold, the sailors
swinging aloft; the miles of ruminating brown logs, and the alert little
man zigzagging across them; the shadow of the mill darkening the water,
and the brown leviathan timbers rising dripping in regular succession
from them; the whirr of the deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect
men dominating the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the
sparkling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue of the
sky. Here was activity, business, industry, the clash of forces. He
admired the quick, compact alertness of Johnny Mason; he joyed in the
absorbed, interested activity of the brown young men with the scaler's
rules; he envied a trifle the muscle-stretching, physical labour of the
men with the leather aprons and hand-guards, piling the lumber. It was
good to draw in deep breaths of this air, to smell deeply of he
aromatic odours of the north.

Suddenly the mill whistle began to blow. Beneath the noise he could hear
the machinery beginning to run down. From all directions men came. They
converged in the central alley, hundreds of them. In a moment Bob was
caught up in their stream, and borne with them toward the
weather-stained shanty town.

VI

Bob followed this streaming multitude to the large structure that had
earlier been pointed out to him as the boarding house. It was a
commodious affair with a narrow verandah to which led steps picked out
by the sharp caulks of the rivermen's boots. A round stove held the
place of honour in the first room. Benches flanked the walls. At one e