motion had gained its
impetus and was sweeping the entire drive down through the gap.

Rank after rank, like soldiers charging, they ran. The great fierce wind
caught them up ahead of the current. In a moment the open river was full
of logs jostling eagerly onward. Then suddenly, far out above the uneven
tossing skyline of Superior, the strange northern "loom," or mirage,
threw the specters of thousands of restless timbers rising and falling
on the bosom of the lake.

Chapter LVI

They stood and watched them go.

"Oh, the great man! Oh, the great man!" murmured the writer, fascinated.

The grandeur of the sacrifice had struck them dumb. They did not
understand the motives beneath it all; but the fact was patent. Big
Junko broke down and sobbed.

After a time the stream of logs through the gap slackened. In a moment
more, save for the inevitably stranded few, the booms were empty. A deep
sigh went up from the attentive multitude.

"She's GONE!" said one man, with the emphasis of a novel discovery; and
groaned.

Then the awe broke from about their minds, and they spoke many opinions
and speculations. Thorpe had disappeared. They respected his emotion and
did not follow him.

"It was just plain damn foolishness;--but it was great!" said Shearer.
"That no-account jackass of a Big Junko ain't worth as much per thousand
feet as good white pine."

Then they noticed a group of men gathering about the office steps, and
on it someone talking. Collins, the bookkeeper, was making a speech.

Collins was a little hatchet-faced man, with straight, lank hair,
nearsighted eyes, a timid, order-loving disposition, and a great
suitability for his profession. He was accurate, unemotional, and
valuable. All his actions were as dry as the saw-dust in the burner. No
one had ever seen him excited. But he was human; and now his knowledge
of the Company's affairs showed him the dramatic contrast. HE KNEW! He
knew that the property of the firm had been mortgaged to the last dollar
in order to assist expansion, so that not another cent could be borrowed
to tide over present difficulty. He knew that the notes for sixty
thousand dollars covering the loan to Wallace Carpenter came due in
three months; he knew from the long table of statistics which he was
eternally preparing and comparing that the season's cut should have
netted a profit of two hundred thousand dollars--enough to pay the
interest on the mortgages, to take up the no