ng lay some two miles north of the sections designated as
belonging to private parties. It was Government land.

Thorpe sat down, lit a pipe, and did a little thinking.

As an axiom it may be premised that the shorter the distance logs have
to be transported, the less it costs to get them in. Now Thorpe had that
very morning passed through beautiful timber lying much nearer the mouth
of the river than either this, or the sections further south. Why had
these men deliberately ascended the stream? Why had they stolen timber
eighteen miles from the bend, when they could equally well have stolen
just as good fourteen miles nearer the terminus of their drive?

Thorpe ruminated for some time without hitting upon a solution. Then
suddenly he remembered the two dams, and his idea that the men in charge
of the river must be wealthy and must intend operating on a large scale.
He thought he glimpsed it. After another pipe, he felt sure.

The Unknowns were indeed going in on a large scale. They intended
eventually to log the whole of the Ossawinamakee basin. For this reason
they had made their first purchase, planted their first foot-hold, near
the headwaters. Furthermore, located as they were far from a present or
an immediately future civilization, they had felt safe in leaving for
the moment their holdings represented by the three sections already
described. Some day they would buy all the standing Government pine
in the basin; but in the meantime they would steal all they could at a
sufficient distance from the lake to minimize the danger of discovery.
They had not dared to appropriate the three mile tract Thorpe had passed
through, because in that locality the theft would probably be remarked,
so they intended eventually to buy it. Until that should become
necessary, however, every stick cut meant so much less to purchase.

"They're going to cut, and keep on cutting, working down river as fast
as they can," argued Thorpe. "If anything happens so they have to,
they'll buy in the pine that is left; but if things go well with them,
they'll take what they can for nothing. They're getting this stuff out
up-river first, because they can steal safer while the country is
still unsettled; and even when it does fill up, there will not be much
likelihood of an investigation so far in-country,--at least until after
they have folded their tents."

It seems to us who are accustomed to the accurate policing of our
twentieth century, alm