ef Mern was not conscious of any especial surprise after Craig had
reported that section of his news which could be understood. The
granddaughter of Flagg could not be expected to do other than she was
doing. In his honest regard for the helper who had served him so long
and efficiently, the chief was wondering whether he ought to reveal her
identity to the Comas man, trying to estimate the danger of such a
revelation. Craig was not stating that his news hinted who she was.

As to the details of the drive, he was more explicit. He raged on while
Mern pondered. "The Flagg drive is a week ahead of time. It must be near
Skulltree dam. I ought to have been up there and I don't understand why
the infernal fools have been so slow in getting word to me."

He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Look here, Mern, I never ought to do another stroke of business with
you, but I'm in too much of a hurry to go anywhere else."

The business instincts of the head of the agency were stirred; the Comas
money had been good picking in the past. "I don't think I should be held
responsible for an operative who has severed connections. Craig, you
have probably made your own mistakes in depending on helpers."

"Don't you make any mistake this time, Mern! I want a dozen or fifteen
men--gunmen. Can you furnish 'em?"

"Sure thing! Within an hour."

"I have promised results to my folks this season. I've got to deliver.
My job depends on it, after all the talk I've made at headquarters."

"Will your headquarters back up my operatives?"

"I'll do that! I'm playing this game on my own hook. There'll be no
fight. The bluff will be enough, if I have the men. And if I have
to--well, there's a fight between lumberjacks every season on that
river, and there's a big wall of woods between Skulltree dam and New
York, Mern! I'll take my chances up behind that wall. Get the men for
me."

"When are you leaving?"

"One o'clock this afternoon--Grand Central."

"I'll deliver the men to you there."

Craig stamped away across the glass-littered floor and disappeared.

"Well," averred the chief when Latisan came out from behind the
partition, "it looks as if somebody had been attending to your job for
you, son! Also looks as if there might be considerable more doing right
away!"

"So that's more of your devilish business, is it, sending gunmen to
fight honest workers?" demanded the drive master, with venom.

"Business is still