efore he could be moved to the county jail where he was a prisoner
under treatment for two more weeks.

Hippy accompanied Peg, and while at the county seat swore out warrants
for Dusenbery and Chet Ainsworth. At the December term of court both men
were found guilty and sentenced to serve terms in prison. Peg Tatem,
according to agreement with the complainants, was released and advised
to seek other fields, which he did.

In the meantime a new dam had been built by Tom and Hippy, and a sawmill
established twenty-five miles further down the river. The sounds of the
"swampers'" axes and the "saw-gangs" were now heard in the forest from
daylight until dark, where huge logs were being felled, trimmed,
skidded and rolled down into the new dam, to be "boomed," and released
after every thaw in early spring, and sent on their way to the mill.

The Overland girls still lingered. After some discussion they had
decided to remain in the woods until after Christmas. By Christmas time
the ground and the trees were white with snow, and Tom closed his
"cruising" for the season. Willy Horse was absent much of the time,
trapping for himself and hunting game for the table of the lumberjacks.
The girls were now living in a real log cabin which the jacks, hearing
them express a wish that they might have one, had built. Logs blazed in
the fireplace, and there the Overland girls, after long hikes in the
forest, and occasional rides on their ponies, spent many happy hours.

At Nora's suggestion, an elaborate Christmas celebration, including a
Christmas tree, was planned by the girls for the jacks and themselves.
Tom, obliged to go to St. Paul on business, more than a week's journey
in itself, was commissioned to purchase the supplies and Christmas gifts
for the celebration, and returned in a sleigh from Bisbee's Corners,
reaching the Overland camp by way of a new trail that his men had cut.
He was a regular Santa Claus, except that he rode "behind mules instead
of reindeers," as Emma Dean expressed it. Then began the real
preparations for Christmas, with many conferences in the log cabin.

Two Christmas dinners were to be laid Christmas evening, one in the new
modern bunk-house that had been recently erected, where the old original
gang of lumberjacks and a few selected newcomers were then living. Many
additional men had been taken on during the early part of the winter
when the lumbering operations began on a large scale, and efforts were