re.

Their meeting--she and the Comas director--was like a rencontre in the
void of space; on the water side of the dam the mists matched the hue of
the glassy surface and the blending masked the water; on the other side,
the fog filled the deep gorge where the torrent of the sluiceway
thundered.

She was obliged to go close to him in order to emerge from the vapor
into his range of vision and to make her voice heard above the roar of
the water. His one visible eye surveyed her with blank astonishment;
near as she was to him, he did not recognize her at first in her rough
garb of the woods.

"Mr. Craig, I _was_"--she stressed the verb significantly--"an employee
in the Vose-Mern agency in New York. I met you in their office."

He clasped his hands behind him as if he feared to have them free in
front of him; her proximity seemed to invite those hands, but his
countenance revealed that he was not in a mood then to give caresses.
"Was, eh? May I ask what you are right now?"

"I'm doing my best to help in getting the Flagg drive down the
river--without trouble!"

"Trouble!" He was echoing her again; it was as if, in his waxing ire, he
did not dare to launch into a topic of his own. "What do you call it,
what has been happening upriver?"

"I presume you mean that dams have been blown to get water for our
logs."

"Our dams!" he shouted.

"I'm a stranger up here. I don't know whose dams they were. I have heard
all kinds of stories about the rights in the dams, sir."

"I can't say to you what I think--and what I want to say! You're a girl,
confound it! I'll only make a fool of myself, talking to you about our
rights and our property. But I can say to you, about your own work, that
you have been paid by our money to do a certain thing."

She opened her eyes on him in offended inquiry.

"I take it that you're the same one who called herself Miss Patsy Jones
when you operated at Adonia."

"I did use that name--for personal reasons."

He did not moderate his wrath. "Here I find that Patsy Jones is Miss
Kennard of the Vose-Mern agency. We have paid good money to the agency.
When I settled for the last job I added two hundred dollars as a present
to you."

"I have not received the gift, sir. It does not belong to me. I'm here
on my own account. I came north at my own expense without notifying
Chief Mern that I was done with the agency; and strictly personal
reasons, also, influenced me on that point." She was try