mained at all
times an enigma.

By the middle of June Bill was able to make short excursions to the
river with the aid of the crutches which Blood River Jack crudely
fashioned from young saplings.

With his increased freedom of movement his restlessness increased.
Somewhere along the river, he knew, the bird's-eye logs were banked,
awaiting the arrival of Moncrossen and Stromberg to raft them to the
railway, and he surmised that their coming would not be long delayed.

Over and over in his mind he turned schemes for outwitting the boss.
The strength was rapidly returning to his injured leg and he discarded
one crutch, using the other only to help him over the rough places.

He was in no condition to undertake a journey to the railway, and in
spite of Blood River Jack's expressed hatred of Moncrossen and
friendship for himself, he hesitated about taking the half-breed into
his confidence.

At length he could stand the suspense no longer. Each day's delay
lessened his chance of success. He decided to act--to lay the matter
before Blood River Jack and ask his cooeperation, and if he refused, to
play the game alone.

He came to this decision one afternoon while seated upon a great log
overlooking the rushing rapid. Beside him sat Jeanne, apparently deeply
engrossed in the embroidering of a buckskin hunting-shirt.

After a long silence Bill knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and his
jaw squared as he looked out over the foaming white-water. He turned
toward the girl and encountered the intense gaze of her dark eyes.

The neglected needlework lay across her knees, the small hands were
folded, and the shining needle glinted in the sun where it had been
deftly caught into the yellow buckskin at the turning of an unfinished
scroll.

"The logs which you seek," she said quietly, "are piled upon the bank
of the river, half a mile below the rapids." The man regarded her with
a startled glance.

"What do you know about these logs--and of what I was thinking?"

She answered him with a curious, baffling smile, and, ignoring his
question, continued:

"You need help. I am but a girl and know naught of logs nor why these
logs did not go down the river with the others. But in your face as you
pondered from day to day I have read it. Is it not that you would
prevent Moncrossen from taking these logs? But you know not how to do
it, for the logs must go down the river and Moncrossen must come up the
river?"

"You are a wo