he stood well within hearing and seeing distance. Then he stopped again.
Bob Orde was walking up and down the bank talking to the men. They were laughing back at him. His manner was half fun, half earnest, part rueful, part impatient, wholly affectionate.
"You, Jim," said he, "go out and get busy. You're loafing, you know you are; I don't give a damn what you're to do. Do something! Don't give an imitation of a cast-iron hero. No, I won't either tell you what to do. I don't know. But do it, even if you have to make it up out of your own head. Consider the festive water-beetle, and the ant and other industrious doodle-bugs. Get a wiggle on you, fellows. We'll never get out at this rate. If this drive gets hung up, I'm going to murder every last one of you. Come on now, all together; if I could walk out on those logs I'd build a fire under you; but you've got me tied to the bank and you know it, you big fat loafers, you!"
"Keep your hair on, bub; we'll make it, all right"
"Well, we'd just better make it," warned Bob. "Now I'm going down to the jam to see whether their alarm clock went off this morning. — Now, don't slumber!"
After he had disappeared down the trail, Welton stepped into view.
"Oh, Charley!" he called.
One of the rivermen sprang ashore.
"When did the rear leave Murdock's?" he asked without preliminary.
"Thursday."
"You've made good time."
"Bet we have," replied Charley with pride.
"Who's jam boss?"
"Larsen."
"Who's in charge of the river, then?" demanded Welton sharply.
"Why, young Orde!" replied the riverman, surprised.
"Since when?"
"Since he blew up Murdock's piles."
"Oh, he did that, did he? I suppose he fired Darrell, too?"
"Sure. It was a peach of a scrap."
"Scrap?"
"Yep. That Orde boy is a wonder. He just ruined Roaring Dick."
"He did, did he?" commented Welton. "Well, so long."
He followed Bob down the river trail. At the end of a half-mile he overtook the young fellow kneeling on a point gazing at a peeled stake planted at the edge of the river.
"Wish I knew how long this water was going to hold out," he murmured, as he heard a man pause behind him. "She's dropped two inches by my patent self-adjusting gauge."
"Young man," said Welton, "are you on the payrolls of this company?"
Bob turned around, then instantly came to his feet.
"Oh, you're here at last, Mr. Welton," he cried in tones of vast relief.
"Answer my question, please."
"What?" asked Bob with an expression of bewilderment.
"Are you on the payrolls of this company?"
"No, sir, of course not. You know that."
"Then what are you doing in charge of this river?"
"Why, don't you see — "
"I see you've destroyed property and let us in for a big damage suit. I see you've discharged our employees without authority to do so. I see you're bossing my men and running my drive without the shadow of a right."
"But something had to be done," expostulated Bob.
"What do you know about river-driving?" broke in Welton. "Not a thing."
"Men who told me did — "
"A bunch of river-hogs," broke in Welton contemptuously. "It strikes me, young man, that you have the most colossal cheek I've ever heard of."
But Bob faced him squarely.
"Look here," he said decidedly, "I'm technically wrong, and I know it. But good men told me your measly old drive would hang if it stayed there two days longer; and I believed them, and I believe them yet. I don't claim to know anything about river-driving, but here your confounded drive is well on its way. I kicked that drunk off the river because he was no good. I took hold here to help you out of a hole, and you're out."
"But," said Welton, carefully, "don't you see that you took chances on losing me a lot of property?"
Bob looked up at him a moment wearily.
"From my point of view I have nothing to regret," said he stiffly, and turned away.
The humorous lines about Welton's eyes had been deepening throughout this interview.
"That tops it off," said he. "First you get me into trouble; then you fire my head man; then you run off with my property; finally you tell me to go to hell! Son, you are a great man! Shake!"
Bob whirled in surprise to search Welton's good-natured jolly face. The latter was smiling.
"Shake," he repeated, relapsing, as was his habit when much in earnest, into his more careless speech; "you done just right. Son, remember this: — it's true — it ain't doing things that makes a man so much as deciding things."
One of his great chuckles bubbled up.
"It took some nerve to jump in the way you did; and some sand to handle the flea-bitten bunch of river-hogs----"
"You're mistaken about them," Bob broke in earnestly. "They've been maligned. They're as good and willing a squad as I ever want to see----"
"Oh, sure," laughed Welton; "they're a nice little job lot of tin angels. However, don't worry. You sure saved the day, for I believe we would have hung if we hadn't got over the riffles before this last drop of the water."
He began to laugh, at first, gently, then more and more heartily, until Bob stared at him with considerable curiosity and inquiry. Welton caught his look.
"I was just thinking of Harvey and Collins," he remarked enigmatically as he wiped his eyes. "Oh, Bobby, my son, you sure do please me. Only I was afraid for a minute it might be a flash in the pan and you weren't going to tell me to go to hell."
They turned back toward the rear.
"By the way," Welton remarked, "you made one bad break just now."
"What was that?" asked Bob.
"You told me you were not on the payrolls of this company. You are."
XVIII
For a year Bob worked hard at all sorts of jobs. He saw the woods work, the river work, the mill work. From the stump to the barges he followed the timbers. Being naturally of a good intelligence, he learned very fast how things were done, so that at the end of the time mentioned he had acquired a fair working knowledge of how affairs were accomplished in this business he had adopted. That does not mean he had become a capable lumberman. One of the strangest fallacies long prevalent in the public mind is that lumbering is always a sure road to wealth. The margin of profit seems very large. As a matter of fact, the industry is so swiftly conducted, on so large a scale, along such varied lines; the expenditures must be made so lavishly, and yet so carefully; the consequences of a niggardly policy are so quickly apparent in decreased efficiency, and yet the possible leaks are so many, quickly draining the most abundant resources, that few not brought up through a long apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal of money has been and is made in timber. A great deal has been lost, simply because, while the possibilities are alluring, the complexity of the numerous problems is unseen.
At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods with a crew of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths, dragged them to the roads already prepared, piled them on