was merely bewildered.

The Comas field director shook under Mern's nose a sheet of paper. He
kept referring to the writing on the paper and vouchsafed information
that the writing was made up of notes of a long-distance conversation
between the woods and the New York offices of the Comas company.

After a time Mern suggested with acerbity that Craig was incoherent.

"I don't doubt it. I feel that way," yelped Craig. "But this message has
come over three or four hundred miles of wire--relayed, at that, and I
think the man who started the word from a fire-outpost station wasn't
entirely right in his head. There's no other way of accounting for the
statement that Ward Latisan's cap and Eck Flagg's cant dog are bossing
the Flagg drive."

"Don't get wrought up by crazy guff!"

"But here are some statements that I _am_ wrought up over," declared
the director, brandishing the paper. "I've got to believe 'em. They
sound straight. Three of our new hold dams in streams that feed the Noda
have been blown. The water has been used to sweep the Flagg logs in
ahead of ours. The lip of the Tougas Lake has been blown, too, and if we
lose that water it's apt to leave us high and dry; our Tougas operation
is a long way in from the main river. They've shot blue blazes out of
Carron Gorge and have taken the water along with 'em. Merry hell is to
pay all up and down that river, Mern."

The agency chief did not relish Craig's bellicose manner, nor the glare
in his one eye that showed, nor the imputation of vindictive rebuke in
his rasping tones.

"Craig, I never saw a log in a river. I know nothing about your drives.
Why are you pitching into me?"

"Why? Why? Because this message says that the girl you sent north--the
girl who was paid by our money--this report says that she has gone up
there and has put the very devil into Flagg's men; is making 'em do
things that the worst pirates on the river never dared to do before.
What kind of a she wildcat did you hand me, anyway? Mern, a thousand
tons of liquid fire poured into the valley of the Noda couldn't hurt us
like that girl is hurting us. Who is she? What is she? Get your word to
her! Call her off!"

That was no time for equivocation. Craig's frenzy demanded candor and
threatened reprisal if the truth were not forthcoming. Mern told part
of the truth.

"She has called her own self off, Craig, so far as this agency is
concerned. I have no further control over her actions."

Chi