"Yes."

"Then I quits right now. Don't want no truck with them critters."

"That's all right, old dear. You just keep right on with the outfit, and
if a lumberjack so much as looks at you, set the bear on him. I know
what Henry can do in that direction, having had a run-in with him
myself."

"Don't ye 'old-dear' me!" growled Joe. "Started that agin, have ye? Miss
Wingate, if ye don't tame that husband of yers with a club, I will." Joe
winked at Nora as she said it.

"Leave him to me, Mrs. Shafto. Hippy, go wash your face. You are a
perfect sight. I'm positively ashamed of you."

"That's all right, Nora. That relieves me of the necessity of being
ashamed of myself. Joe, you merely imagine that you dislike lumberjacks.
There are some good fellows among them. They aren't all so bad as you
paint them," said Hippy soothingly.

The forest woman flared up.

"I hate the whole pack and pa'cel of 'em! I-hate 'em wuss'n a scalded
pup hates vinegar on his back. I'll stay, of course, but I'll sick Henry
on 'em if they bothers me; then I'll turn my back and fergit that
Henry's chawin' up a human bein'. So there!"

The Overland girls laughed merrily, and Grace linking an arm into the
guide's led her down to the river where the two sat down, Grace to give
Joe Shafto friendly advice, and Joe to accept it as she would from no
other member of the Overland Riders.

In the meantime Tom and Hippy were discussing their plans. They spent a
good part of the day doing so. After dinner Grace and Elfreda paddled up
the river in the bark canoe, returning just before suppertime, faces
flushed from their exercise, and eyes sparkling.

Early next morning Willy Horse and the advance guard of the timber
outfit arrived on the scene, as was evidenced by sundry shouts up-river.
Tom and Hippy hurried upstream to meet the party, and later in the day
the Overland girls came up to watch the work already in progress. A
knock-down bunk-house was rapidly going up, and the cook with pots and
kettles over a brisk fire in the open was preparing supper for the
lumberjacks.

The jacks were a hardy two-fisted lot of men, Swedes, Norwegians, French
Canadians, half-breeds and a few sturdy Americans, though the latter
were greatly outnumbered. Tom was bossing the gang and doing it like a
man who had handled lumberjacks before.

"Why so rough with them?" remonstrated Grace.

"Because I know the breed. Be easy with jacks and they think you are
afraid of t