warmer--warm enough to start rivulets running from
sheltered snowbanks in the mountains. Daily the distance increased from
shore to shore. Sprawling trees, driftwood, carcasses, the year's
rubbish from draws and gulches, swept by on the broad bosom of the
yellow flood. The half-submerged willows were bending in the current and
water-mark after water-mark disappeared on the bridge piles.

Bruce had not realized that the days of waiting had stretched his nerves
to such a tension until he learned that the freight had really come. He
felt for a moment as though the burdens of the world had been suddenly
rolled from his shoulders. His relief was short-lived. It changed to
consternation when he saw the last of the machinery piled upon the bank
for loading. It weighed not fifty thousand pounds but all of
ninety--nearer a hundred! Dumfounded for the moment, he did not see how
he could take it. The saving that he had made on the purchase price was
eaten up by the extra weight owing to the excessive freight rates from
the coast and on the branch line to Meadows. More than that, Jennings
had disobeyed his explicit orders to box the smaller parts of each
machine together. All had been thrown in the car helter-skelter.

Not since he had raged at "Slim" had Bruce been so furious, but there
was little time to indulge his temper for there was now an extra boat to
build upon which he must trust Smaltz as front sweepman.

They all worked early and late, building the extra barge, dividing the
weight and loading the unwieldy machinery, but the best they could do,
counting four boats to a trip instead of three, each barge drew from
eight to twelve inches of water.

Though he gave no outward sign and went on stubbornly, the undertaking
under such conditions--even to Bruce--looked foolhardy, while the
croakings of the "Old Timers" rose to a wail of lamentation.

The last nail was driven and the last piece loaded and Bruce and his
boatmen stood on the banks at dusk looking at the four barges, securely
tied with bow and stern lines riding on the rising flood. Thirty-seven
feet long they were, five feet high, eight feet wide while the sweeps
were of two young fir trees over six inches in diameter and twenty feet
in length. A twelve foot plank formed the blade which was bolted
obliquely to one end and the whole balanced on a pin. They were clumsy
looking enough, these flat-bottomed barges, but the only type of boat
that could ride the rough w