ld have meant a
great deal to her, for a girl whose mother she but dimly remembers,
turns naturally to her next of kin. Helen Thorpe had always admired her
brother, but had never before needed him. She had looked upon him as
strong, self-contained, a little moody. Now the tone of his letter
caused her to wonder whether he were not also a trifle hard and cold.
So she wept on receiving it, and the tears watered the ground for
discontent.

At the beginning of the row in the smoking car, Thorpe laid aside his
letter and watched with keen appreciation the direct practicality of
the trainmen's method. When the bearded man fell before the conductor's
blow, he turned to the individual at his side.

"He knows how to hit, doesn't he!" he observed. "That fellow was knocked
well off his feet."

"He does," agreed the other dryly.

They fell into a desultory conversation of fits and starts. Woodsmen of
the genuine sort are never talkative; and Thorpe, as has been explained,
was constitutionally reticent. In the course of their disjointed
remarks Thorpe explained that he was looking for work in the woods, and
intended, first of all, to try the Morrison & Daly camps at Beeson Lake.

"Know anything about logging?" inquired the stranger.

"Nothing," Thorpe confessed.

"Ain't much show for anything but lumber-jacks. What did you think of
doing?"

"I don't know," said Thorpe, doubtfully. "I have driven horses a good
deal; I thought I might drive team."

The woodsman turned slowly and looked Thorpe over with a quizzical eye.
Then he faced to the front again and spat.

"Quite like," he replied still more dryly.

The boy's remark had amused him, and he had showed it, as much as he
ever showed anything. Excepting always the riverman, the driver of a
team commands the highest wages among out-of-door workers. He has to
be able to guide his horses by little steps over, through, and around
slippery and bristling difficulties. He must acquire the knack of facing
them square about in their tracks. He must hold them under a control
that will throw into their collars, at command, from five pounds to
their full power of pull, lasting from five seconds to five minutes.
And above all, he must be able to keep them out of the way of tremendous
loads of logs on a road which constant sprinkling has rendered smooth
and glassy, at the same time preventing the long tongue from sweeping
them bodily against leg-breaking debris when a curve in the ro