turning in threat.

"Scotty!" said Thorpe sharply.

Scotty turned back to his task, which was to help the blacksmith put
together the wagon, the component parts of which the others had trundled
out.

With thirty men at the job it does not take a great while to move a
small cargo thirty or forty feet. By three o'clock the Pole Star was
ready to continue her journey. Thorpe climbed aboard, leaving Shearer in
charge.

"Keep the men at it, Tim," said he. "Put up the walls of the warehouse
good and strong, and move the stuff in. If it rains, you can spread the
tent over the roof, and camp in with the provisions. If you get through
before I return, you might take a scout up the river and fix on a camp
site. I'll bring back the lumber for roofs, floors, and trimmings with
me, and will try to pick up a few axmen for swamping. Above all things,
have a good man or so always in charge. Those fellows won't bother us
any more for the present, I think; but it pays to be on deck. So long."

In Marquette, Thorpe arranged for the cashing of his time checks and
orders; bought lumber at the mills; talked contract with old Harvey,
the mill-owner and prospective buyer of the young man's cut; and engaged
four axmen whom he found loafing about, waiting for the season to open.

When he returned to the bay he found the warehouse complete except for
the roofs and gables. These, with their reinforcement of tar-paper,
were nailed on in short order. Shearer and Andrews, the surveyor, were
scouting up the river.

"No trouble from above, boys?" asked Thorpe.

"Nary trouble," they replied.

The warehouse was secured by padlocks, the wagon loaded with the tent
and the necessaries of life and work. Early in the morning the little
procession laughing, joking, skylarking with the high spirits of men in
the woods took its way up the river-trail. Late that evening, tired, but
still inclined to mischief, they came to the first dam, where Shearer
and Andrews met them.

"How do you like it, Tim?" asked Thorpe that evening.

"She's all right," replied the riverman with emphasis; which, for him,
was putting it strong.

At noon of the following day the party arrived at the second dam. Here
Shearer had decided to build the permanent camp. Injin Charley was
constructing one of his endless series of birch-bark canoes. Later he
would paddle the whole string to Marquette, where he would sell them to
a hardware dealer for two dollars and a half apiece.