sewhere; a way to arrive in
spite of them always exists, if only a man is willing to use his wits,
unflagging energy, and time. Bad luck is a reality; but much of what is
called bad luck is nothing but a want of careful foresight, and Thorpe
could better afford to be harsh occasionally to the genuine for the sake
of eliminating the false. If a man failed, he left Camp One.

The procedure was very simple. Thorpe never explained his reasons even
to Shearer.

"Ask Tom to step in a moment," he requested of the latter.

"Tom," he said to that individual, "I think I can use you better at
Four. Report to Kerlie there."

And strangely enough, few even of these proud and independent men ever
asked for their time, or preferred to quit rather than to work up again
to the glories of their prize camp.

For while new recruits were never accepted at Camp One, neither was a
man ever discharged there. He was merely transferred to one of the other
foremen.

It is necessary to be thus minute in order that the reader may
understand exactly the class of men Thorpe had about his immediate
person. Some of them had the reputation of being the hardest citizens in
three States, others were mild as turtle doves. They were all pioneers.
They had the independence, the unabashed eye, the insubordination even,
of the man who has drawn his intellectual and moral nourishment at the
breast of a wild nature. They were afraid of nothing alive. From no one,
were he chore-boy or president, would they take a single word--with the
exception always of Tim Shearer and Thorpe.

The former they respected because in their picturesque guild he was a
master craftsman. The latter they adored and quoted and fought for in
distant saloons, because he represented to them their own ideal, what
they would be if freed from the heavy gyves of vice and executive
incapacity that weighed them down.

And they were loyal. It was a point of honor with them to stay "until
the last dog was hung." He who deserted in the hour of need was not only
a renegade, but a fool. For he thus earned a magnificent licking if ever
he ran up against a member of the "Fighting Forty." A band of soldiers
they were, ready to attempt anything their commander ordered, devoted,
enthusiastically admiring. And, it must be confessed, they were also
somewhat on the order of a band of pirates. Marquette thought so each
spring after the drive, when, hat-tilted, they surged swearing and
shouting down t