on, illustrating his
point in the soft wood ashes of the immediate fireside.

Thorpe looked doubtful. "I believe you are right, Charley," said he.
"But it is mighty little to go on. You can't be sure."

"I sure," replied Charley.

He puffed strongly at the heel of his smoke, then arose, and without
farewell disappeared in the forest.

Thorpe ranged the camp impatiently, glancing often at the sky. At length
he laid fresh logs on the fire and aroused the cook. It was bitter
cold in the early morning. After a time the men turned out of their
own accord, at first yawning with insufficient rest, and then becoming
grimly tense as their returned wits reminded them of the situation.

From that moment began the wonderful struggle against circumstances
which has become a by-word among rivermen everywhere. A forty-day drive
had to go out in ten. A freshet had to float out thirty million feet of
logs. It was tremendous; as even the men most deeply buried in the heavy
hours of that time dimly realized. It was epic; as the journalist, by
now thoroughly aroused, soon succeeded in convincing his editors and his
public. Fourteen, sixteen, sometimes eighteen hours a day, the men of
the driving crew worked like demons. Jams had no chance to form. The
phenomenal activity of the rear crew reduced by half the inevitable
sacking. Of course, under the pressure, the lower dam had gone out.
Nothing was to be depended on but sheer dogged grit. Far up-river Sadler
& Smith had hung their drive for the season. They had stretched heavy
booms across the current, and so had resigned themselves to a definite
but not extraordinary loss. Thorpe had at least a clear river.

Wallace Carpenter could not understand how human flesh and blood
endured. The men themselves had long since reached the point of
practical exhaustion, but were carried through by the fire of their
leader. Work was dogged until he stormed into sight; then it became
frenzied. He seemed to impart to those about him a nervous force and
excitability as real as that induced by brandy. When he looked at a man
from his cavernous, burning eyes, that man jumped.

It was all willing enough work. Several definite causes, each adequate
alone to something extraordinary, focussed to the necessity. His men
worshipped Thorpe; the idea of thwarting the purposes of their
comrade's murderers retained its strength; the innate pride of caste
and craft--the sturdiest virtue of the riverman--was in thes