Tressa knew where. The
man straightened and shaded his eyes toward them.

Tressa was struggling with her father. He must not shoot again. The
man watched. Presently he slowly raised his rifle.

The thud of the bullet in the shack not two feet from Torrance's
shoulder preceded the sound of the explosion. The rifle did not drop.
A second tiny fleck of smoke, and a bullet sank into the logs only two
feet on the other side of the doorway. Torrance heaved Tressa back
within the shack. And as he came about, a third bullet from the
mysterious stranger dug into the log not more than a foot above his
head.

Torrance did not move--he scarcely even thought at that moment. The
marksman above the rapids lowered his rifle and turned carelessly away.
The woman and the dog joined him. The horses were lost in the trees.

The big contractor twisted himself from bullet hole to bullet hole, and
one big hand pushed wonderingly through his heavy hair.

"It sure ain't me he wants," he muttered.

CHAPTER IV

IGNACE KOPPOWSKI APPEARS

The rifle fire, disturbing to Torrance, created a panic in the camp
below. Men who used weapons on each other with the worst intent were
the first to appreciate their menace. True, they seldom resorted to
firearms, for the Pole, and the Russian, and the Hungarian, and the
Italian and their kind on construction consider the knife more suited
to their particular case, as being safer and more satisfying. But for
a gun they have a proper respect.

Some of the groups of gamblers on the river bottom saw the raft while
yet Torrance was wrapped in the evening picture, watching at first with
the stupidity of their class, then with equally characteristic
suspicion. From group to group the strange spectacle passed without
spoken word; and some whose spotted lives had carried them through
varied scenes realised the threat of the rapids. Here and there one,
more sensitive to the struggle, rose to his feet in unconscious
sympathy. The stable foreman, recognising the horses, stumbled away to
where his charges were housed for the night. But for the most part
these slow-witted men without a quiver saw death creeping on the raft.
Until the horses leaped ashore each knew to a cent his position in the
interrupted games.

But the rifle shot whipping out from the boss's shack up beside the
grade electrified them. As if worked by a common spring, they rushed
for the camp, heavy footed and panicky, dra