inished, North and his principal sauntered to the
water's edge, where they stood for a minute looking at the logs and the
ruffled expanse of water below.

"Might as well have sails on them and be done with it," remarked Jack
Orde reflectively. "Couldn't hold 'em any tighter. It's a pity that old
mossback had to put in a mill. The water was slack enough before, but
now there seems to be no current at all."

"Case of wait for the wind," agreed Tom North. "Old Daly will be
red-headed. He must be about out of logs at the mill. The flood-water's
going down every minute, and it'll make the riffles above Redding a holy
fright. And I expect Johnson's drive will be down on our rear most any
time."

"It's there already. Let's go take a look," suggested Orde.

They picked their way around the edge of the pond to the site of the new
mill.

"Sluice open all right," commented Orde. "Thought she might be closed."

"I saw to that," rejoined North in an injured tone.

"'Course," agreed Orde, "but he might have dropped her shut on you
between times, when you weren't looking."

He walked out on the structure and looked down on the smooth water
rushing through.

"Ought to make a draw," he reflected. Then he laughed. "Tom, look here,"
he called. "Climb down and take a squint at this."

North clambered to a position below.

"The son of a gun!" he exclaimed.

The sluice, instead of bedding at the natural channel of the river,
had been built a good six feet above that level; so that, even with the
gates wide open, a "head" of six feet was retained in the slack water of
the pond.

"No wonder we couldn't get a draw," said Orde. "Let's hunt up old
What's-his-name and have a pow-wow."

"His name is plain Reed," explained North. "There he comes now."

"Sainted cats!" cried Orde, with one of his big, rollicking chuckles.
"Where did you catch it?"

The owner of the dam flapped into view as a lank and lengthy individual
dressed in loose, long clothes and wearing a-top a battered old "plug"
hat, the nap of which seemed all to have been rubbed off the wrong way.

As he bore down on the intruders with tremendous, nervous strides,
they perceived him to be an old man, white of hair, cadaverous of
countenance, with thin, straight lips, and burning, fanatic eyes beneath
stiff and bushy brows.

"Good-morning, Mr. Reed," shouted Orde above the noise of the water.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," replied the apparition.

"Nice dam you got h