toward the lower camp road, wondering
vaguely what it all could mean, striving to figure why Ba'tiste should
have turned to logging operations instead of continuing to stress every
workman's ability on the rebuilding of the burned structure. A mile he
went--two--then halted.

A thunderous voice was booming belligerently from the distance:

"You lie--un'stan'? Ba'teese say you lie--if you no like eet,
jus'--what-you-say--climb up me! Un'stan'? Climb up me!"

Houston broke into a run, racing along the flume with constantly
increasing speed as he heard outburst after outburst from the giant
trapper, interjected by the lesser sounds of argumentative voices in
reply. Faintly he heard a woman's voice, then Ba'tiste's in sudden
command:

"Go on--you no belong here. Ba'tiste, he handle this. Go 'long!"

Faster than ever went Barry Houston, at last to make the turn of the
road as it followed the flume, and to stop, breathless, just in time to
escape colliding with the broad back of the gigantic Canadian, squared
as he was, half across the road. Facing him were five men with shovels
and hammers, workmen of the Blackburn camp, interrupted evidently in
the building of some sort of contraption which led away into the woods.
Houston looked more closely, then gasped. It was another flume; they
were making a connection with his own; already water had been diverted
from the main flume and was flowing down the newly boarded conduit
which led to the Blackburn mill. A lunge and he had taken his place
beside Renaud.

"What's this mean?" he demanded angrily, to hear his words echoed by
the booming voice of his big companion:

"Ah, _oui_! Yes--what this mean? Huh?"

The foreman looked up caustically.

"I've told you about ten times," he answered, addressing himself to
Ba'tiste. "We're building a connection on our flume."

"Our flume?" Houston gasped the words. "Where do you get that 'our'
idea? I own this flume and this lake and this flume site--"

"If your name's Houston, I guess you do," came the answer. "But if you
can read and write, you ought to know that while you may own it, you
don't use it. That's our privilege from now on, in cold black and
white. As far as the law is concerned, this is our flume, and our
water, and our lake, and our woods back there. And we're going to use
all of 'em, as much as we please--and it's your business to stay out of
our way!"

CHAPTER XI

The statement took Hous