e eased down the slopes to the landings
close to the frozen Tomah.

Ward Latisan was not merely a sauntering boss, inspecting operations. He
went out in the gray mornings with an ax in his hand. He understood the
value of personal and active leadership. He was one with his men. They
put forth extra effort because he was with them.

Therefore, when the April rains began to soften the March snow crusts
and the spring flood sounded its first murmur under the blackening ice
of Tomah, the Latisan logs were ready to be rolled into the river.

And then something happened!

That contract with the Walpole second cousins--pronounced an air-tight
contract by the lawyer--was pricked, popped, and became nothing.

An heir appeared and proved his rights. He was the only grandson of old
Isaac. The cousins did not count in the face of the grandson's claims.

In the past, in the Tomah region, there had been fictitious heirs who
had worked blackmail on operators who took a chance with putative heirs
and tax titles. But the Latisans were faced with proofs that this heir
was real and right.

Why had he waited until the cut was landed?

The Latisans pressed him with desperate questions, trying to find a way
out of their trouble.

He was a sullen and noncommunicative person and intimated that he had
suited his own convenience in coming on from the West.

The Latisans, when the heir appeared, were crippled for ready cash,
after settling with the cousin heirs for stumpage and paying the
winter's costs of operating. Those cousins were needy folks and had
spent the money paid to them; there was no hope of recovering any
considerable portion of the amounts.

The true heir attached the logs as they lay, and a court injunction
prevented the Latisans from moving a stick. The heir showed a somewhat
singular disinclination to have any dealings with the Latisans. He
refused their offer to share profits with him; he persistently returned
an exasperating reply: he did not care to do business with men who had
tried to steal his property. He said he had already traded with
responsible parties. Comas surveyors came and scaled the logs and nested
C's were painted on the ends of the timber.

The Latisans had "gone bump"; the word went up and down the Tomah.

"Well, go ahead and say it!" suggested Rufus Craig when he had set
himself in the path of Ward Latisan, who was coming away from a last,
and profitless, interview with the obstinate heir.