hat
his ire was mounting as he made sure of what was taking place.

They were blasting a rude canal from the Noda across the low horseback
which divided the Noda waters from Tomah ponds. It meant the diversion
of flowage. It was contemptuous disregard of the Noda rights in favor of
the million-dollar paper mill of the Three C's on the Tomah lower
waters. Rufus Craig had said something to young Latisan about the
inexpediency of picking up a million-dollar paper mill and lugging it
off in a shawl strap. It would be easier to blow a hole through the
earth and feed in the logs from the Noda.

"By the red-hot hinges of Tophet!" bawled Flagg, having made sure that
the enormity he was viewing was not a dream. He cut his whip under the
bellies of his horses, one stroke to right and the other to left, and
the animals went over the cliff and down the sharp slope, skating and
floundering through the snow. The descent at that place would have been
impossible for horses except for the snow which trigged feet and runners
in some degree; it was damp and heavy; but the frantic threshing of the
plunging beasts kicked up a smother of snow none the less. It was like a
thunderbolt in a nimbus--the rush of Flagg down the mountain.

Rufus Craig was in the shack at the end of Skulltree dam--his makeshift
office. Somebody called to him, and from his door he beheld the last
stages of Flagg's harebrained exploit, a veritable touch-and-go with
death.

"There ain't much doubt about who it is that's coming for a social
call," said the understrapper who had summoned the field director. "And
the question is whether he's bound for hell or Skulltree."

Craig did not comment; he had the air of one who had been expecting a
visitor of this sort and was not especially astonished by the mode of
getting there suddenly, considering the spur for action.

Tempestuous was the rush of the horses across the narrow flats between
the cliff and the end of the dam. So violently did Flagg jerk them to a
standstill in front of the shack, one horse fell and dragged down the
other in a tangle of harness. Flagg left them to struggle to their feet
as best they were able. He leaped off the jumper and thrust with the
handle of his whip in the direction of the dynamite operations.

The old man's features were contorted into an arabesque--a pattern of
maniacal rage. His face was purple and its hue was deepened because it
was set off against the snow which crusted his gar