in! Yet the logger dreams always of saving his money, of
becoming a timber king, of setting himself up in some business--knowing
all the while that he is like a child with pennies in his hand,
unhappy until they are spent. Bill Hayes was past fifty, and he knew
all this. He stayed in the woods as long as the weakness of the flesh
permitted, naively certain that he had gone on his last "bust", that
he would bank his money and experience the glow of possessing capital.

The other man was negligible--a bovine lump of flesh without
personality--born to hew wood and draw water for men of enterprise.

And there was always Mills, Mills who wanted to make a stake and "get
to hell out of here", and who did not go, although the sum to his
credit in Hollister's account book was creeping towards a thousand
dollars, so fierce and unceasing an energy did Mills expend upon the
fragrant cedar.

Hollister himself accounted for no small profit. Like Mills, he worked
under a spur. He wrestled stoutly with opportunity. He saw beyond the
cedar on that green slope. With a living assured, he sought fortune,
aspired to things as yet beyond his reach,--leisure, an ampler way of
life, education for his children that were to be.

This measure of prosperity loomed not so distant. When he took stock
of his resources in October, he found himself with nearly three
thousand dollars in hand and the bulk of his cedar still standing.
Half that was directly the gain derived from a rising market. Labor
was his only problem. If he could get labor, and shingles held the
upper price levels, he would make a killing in the next twelve months.
After that, with experience gained and working capital, the forested
region of the British Columbia coast lay before him as a field of
operations.

Meantime he was duly thankful for daily progress. Materially that
destiny which he doubted seemed to smile on him.

Late in October, when the first southward flight of wild duck began to
wing over the valley, old Bill Hayes and Sam Ballard downed tools and
went to town. The itch of the wandering foot had laid hold of them.
The pennies burned their pockets. Ballard frankly wanted a change.
Hayes declared he wanted only a week's holiday, to see a show or two
and buy some clothes. He would surely be back.

"Yes, he'll be back," Mills commented with ironic emphasis. "He'll be
broke in a week and the first camp that pays his fare out will get
him. There's no fool like a logg