t in
the woods nine months of the year, up early in the morning and in late
at night. Suppose you slept in rough blankets, on the ground or in
bunks, ate rough food, never saw a woman or a book, undertook work to
scare your city men up a tree and into a hole too easy, risked your life
a dozen times a week in a tangle of logs, with the big river roaring
behind just waiting to swallow you; saw nothing but woods and river,
were cold and hungry and wet, and so tired you couldn't wiggle, until
you got to feeling like the thing was never going to end, and until you
got sick of it way through in spite of the excitement and danger. And
then suppose you hit town, where there were all the things you hadn't
had--and the first thing you struck was Hell's Half-Mile. Say! you've
seen water behind a jam, haven't you? Water-power's a good thing in a
mill course, where it has wheels to turn; but behind a jam it just RIPS
things--oh, what's the use talking! A girl doesn't know what it means.
She couldn't understand."

He broke off with an impatient gesture. She was looking at him intently,
her lips again half-parted.

"I think I begin to understand a little," said she softly. She smiled to
herself. "But they are a hard and heartless class in spite of all their
energy and courage, aren't they?" she drew him out.

"Hard and heartless!" exploded Orde. "There's no kinder lot of men on
earth, let me tell you. Why, there isn't a man on that river who doesn't
chip in five or ten dollars when a man is hurt or killed; and that means
three or four days' hard work for him. And he may not know or like the
injured man at all! Why--"

"What's all the excitement?" drawled Jane Hubbard behind them. "Can't
you make it a to-be-continued-in-our-next? We're 'most starved."

"Yes-indeed!" chimed in the Incubus.

The company trooped out to the dining-room where the table, spread with
all the good things, awaited them.

"Ernest, you light the candles," drawled Jane, drifting slowly along the
table with her eye on the arrangements, "and some of you boys go get the
butter and the milk-pitcher from the ice-box."

To Orde's relief, no one threw any bread, although the whole-hearted
fun grew boisterous enough before the close of the meal. Miss Bishop sat
directly across from him. He had small chance of conversation with her
in the hubbub that raged, but he gained full leisure to examine her
more closely in the fuller illumination. Throughout, her note was