out you tie sand-bags to'em an' drop 'em in
the Great Eddy. I'm the same kind; I remember when I was stranded on
jest sech a rock in the Kennebec, only they left me there all night for
dead, an' I had to swim the rapids when it come daylight."

"We're well acquainted with that rock and them rapids," exclaimed one of
the river-drivers, to the delight of the company.

Rose had reason to remember Stephen's adventure, for he had clambered
up the bank, smiling and blushing under the hurrahs of the boys, and,
coming to the wagon where she sat waiting for her grandfather, had
seized a moment to whisper: "Did you care whether I came across safe,
Rose? Say you did!"

Stephen recalled that question, too, on this August morning; perhaps
because this was to be a red-letter day, and sometime, when he had a
free moment,--sometime before supper, when he and Rose were sitting
apart from the others, watching the logs,--he intended again to ask her
to marry him. This thought trembled in him, stirring the deeps of his
heart like a great wave, almost sweeping him off his feet when he held
it too close and let it have full sway. It would be the fourth time that
he had asked Rose this question of all questions, but there was no
perceptible difference in his excitement, for there was always the
possible chance that she might change her mind and say yes, if only for
variety. Wanting a thing continuously, unchangingly, unceasingly, year
after year, he thought,--longing to reach it as the river longed to
reach the sea,--such wanting might, in course of time, mean having.

Rose drove up to the bridge with the men's luncheon, and the under boss
came up to take the baskets and boxes from the back of the wagon.

"We've had a reg'lar tussle this mornin', Rose," he said. "The logs are
determined not to move. Ike Billings, that's the han'somest and
fluentest all-round swearer on the Saco, has tried his best on the side
jam. He's all out o' cuss-words and there hain't a log budged. Now, stid
o' dog-warpin' this afternoon, an' lettin' the oxen haul off all them
stubborn logs by main force, we're goin' to ask you to set up on the
bank and smile at the jam. 'Land! she can do it!' says Ike a minute ago.
'When Rose starts smilin',' he says, 'there ain't a jam nor a bung in me
that don't melt like wax and jest float right off same as the logs do
when they get into quiet, sunny water.'"

Rose blushed and laughed, and drove up the hill to Mite Shapley's, w