e
hitch my team."

He drove deliberately ahead, forcing the man to step aside, and stopped
his horses by a stub. He tied them there and descended, to lean his back
also against the log walls of the little house.

After a few moments a huge form appeared above the river bank at some
forty rods' distance.

"Yonder he comes now," vouchsafed the man nearest Orde.

Orde made out the great square figure of the boss, his soft hat, his
flaming red beard, his dingy mackinaw coat, his dingy black-and-white
checked flannel shirt, his dingy blue trousers tucked into high socks,
and, instead of driving boots, his ordinary lumberman's rubbers. As a
spot of colour, he wore a flaming red knit sash, with tassels. Before
he had approached near enough to be plainly distinguishable, he began
to bellow at the men, commanding them, with a mighty array of oaths,
to wake up and get the sluice-gate open. In a moment or so he had
disappeared behind some bushes that intervened in his approach to the
house. His course through them could be traced by the top of his cap,
which just showed above them. In a moment he thrust through the brush
and stood before Orde.

For a moment he stared at the young man, and then, with a wild Irish
yell, leaped upon him. Orde, caught unawares and in an awkward position,
was hardly able even to struggle against the gigantic riverman.
Indeed, before he had recovered his faculties to the point of offering
determined resistance, he was pinned back against the wall by his
shoulders, and the Rough Red's face was within two feet of his own.

"And how are ye, ye ould darlint?" shouted the latter, with a roll of
oaths.

"Why, Jimmy Bourke!" cried Orde, and burst into a laugh.

The Rough Red jerked him to his feet, delivered a bear hug that nearly
crushed his ribs, and pounded him mightily on the back.

"You ould snoozer!" he bellowed. "Where the blankety blank in blank did
you come from? Byes," he shouted to the men, "it's me ould boss on th'
Au Sable six year back--that time, ye mind, whin we had th' ice jam!
Glory be! but I'm glad to see ye!"

Orde was still laughing.

"I didn't know you'd turned into the Rough Red, Jimmy," said he. "I
don't believe we were either of us old enough for whiskers then, were
we?"

The Rough Red grinned.

"Thrue for ye!" said he. "And what have ye been doing all these years?"

"That's just it, Jimmy," said Orde, drawing the giant one side, out of
ear-shot. "All my eggs are in