Yes, I believe they are," said Orde.

"And, of course, it was agreed, as usual, that Heinzman was to break out
his own rollways?"

"I see," said Orde slowly. "You think he intends to delay things enough
so we can't deliver on the date agreed on."

"I know it," stated Newmark positively.

"But if he refuses to deliver the logs, no court of law will--"

"Law!" cried Newmark. "Refuse to deliver! You don't know that kind. He
won't refuse to deliver. There'll just be a lot of inevitable delays,
and his foreman will misunderstand, and all that. You ought to know more
about that than I do."

Orde nodded, his eye abstracted.

"It's a child-like scheme," commented Newmark. "If I'd had more
knowledge of the business, I'd have seen it sooner."

"I'd never have seen it at all," said Orde humbly. "You seem to be the
valuable member of this firm, Joe."

"In my way," said Newmark, "you in yours. We ought to make a good team."

XII

Sunday afternoon, Orde, leaving Newmark to devices of his own, walked
slowly up the main street, turned to the right down one of the shaded
side residence streets that ended finally in a beautiful glistening
sand-hill. Up this he toiled slowly, starting at every step avalanches
and streams down the slope. Shortly he found himself on the summit, and
paused for a breath of air from the lake.

He was just above the tops of the maples, which seen from this angle
stretched away like a forest through which occasionally thrust roofs and
spires. Some distance beyond a number of taller buildings and the red
of bricks were visible. Beyond them still were other sand-hills, planted
raggedly with wind-twisted and stunted trees. But between the brick
buildings and these sand-hills flowed the river--wide, deep, and
still--bordered by the steamboat landings on the town side and by
fishermen's huts and net-racks and small boats on the other. Orde seated
himself on the smooth, clean sand and removed his hat. He saw these
things, and in imagination the far upper stretches of the river, with
the mills and yards and booms extending for miles; and still above them
the marshes and the flats where the river widened below the Big Bend.
That would be the location for the booms of the new company--a cheap
property on which the partners had already secured a valuation. And
below he dropped in imagination with the slackening current until
between two greater sand-hills than the rest the river ran out through
the