.

"But what I can't make out," reflected Newmark, "is why he's so sure
we'll have to forfeit."

"I think he's just taking a long shot at it," suggested Orde, who seemed
finally to have decided against Newmark's opinion. "I believe you're
shying at mare's nests."

"Not he. He has some good reason for thinking we won't deliver the logs.
Why does he insist on putting in a date for delivery? None of the others
does."

"I don't know," replied Orde. "Just to put some sort of a time limit on
the thing, I suppose."

"You say you surely can get the drive through by then?"

Orde laughed.

"Sure? Why, it gives me two weeks' leeway over the worst possible luck I
could have. You're too almighty suspicious, Joe."

Newmark shook his head.

"You let me figure this out," said he.

But bedtime found him without a solution. He retired to his room under
fire of Orde's good-natured raillery. Orde himself shut his door, the
smile still on his lips. As he began removing his coat, however, the
smile died. The week had been a busy one. Hardly had he exchanged a
dozen words with his parents, for he had even been forced to eat his
dinner and supper away from home. This Sunday he had promised himself to
make his deferred but much-desired call on Jane Hubbard--and her guest.
He turned out the gas with a shrug of resignation. For the first
time his brain cleared of its turmoil of calculations, of guesses, of
estimates, and of men. He saw clearly the limited illumination cast
downward by the lamp beneath its wide shade, the graceful, white figure
against the shadow of the easy chair, the oval face cut in half by the
lamplight to show plainly the red lips with the quaint upward quirks at
the corners, and dimly the inscrutable eyes and the hair with the soft
shadows. With a sigh he fell asleep.

Some time in the night he was awakened by a persistent tapping on the
door. In the woodsman's manner, he was instantly broad awake. He lit
the gas and opened the door to admit Newmark, partially dressed over his
night gown.

"Orde," said he briefly and without preliminary, "didn't you tell me the
other day that rollways were piled both on the banks and IN the river?"

"Yes, sometimes," said Orde. "Why?

"Then they might obstruct the river?"

"Certainly."

"I thought so!" cried Newmark, with as near an approach to exultation as
he ever permitted himself. "Now, just one other thing: aren't Heinzman's
rollways below most of the others?"

"