to fill the river-bed below. Logs run ahead
faster than the water spreads.

Sure enough, after supper Orde suddenly appeared among them, the
well-known devil of mischief dancing in his eyes and broadening his
good-natured face.

"Get organised, boys," said he briskly. "We've got to get this pond all
sluiced before morning, and there's enough of us here to hustle it right
along."

The men took their places. Orde moved here and there, giving his
directions.

"Sluice through everything but the "H" logs," he commanded. "Work them
off to the left and leave them."

Twilight, then dark, fell. After a few moments the moon, then just past
its full, rose behind the new-budding trees. The sluicing, under the
impetus of a big crew, went rapidly.

"I bet there's mighty near a million an hour going through there,"
speculated Orde, watching the smooth, swift, but burdened waters of the
chute.

And in this work the men distinguished easily the new white blaze-marks
on Heinzman's logs; so they were able without hesitation to shunt them
one side into the smoother water, as Orde had commanded.

About two o'clock the last log shot through.

"Now, boys," said Orde, "tear out the booms."

The chute to the dam was approached, as has been earlier explained, by
two rows of booms arranged in a V, or funnel, the apex of which emptied
into the sluice-way, and the wide, projecting arms of which embraced
the width of the stream. The logs, floating down the pond, were thus
concentrated toward the sluice. Also, the rivermen, walking back and
forth the length of the booms, were able easily to keep the drive
moving.

Now, however, Orde unchained these boom logs. The men pushed them
ashore. There as many as could find room on either side the boom-poles
clamped in their peavies, and, using these implements as handles,
carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybody
tramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde was
like a mischievous boy at a school prank. When the last timber had been
concealed, he lifted up his deep voice in a roar of joy, in which the
crew joined.

"Now let's turn in for a little sleep," said be.

This situation, perhaps a little cloudy in the reader's mind, would
have cleared could he have looked out over the dam pond the following
morning. The blazed logs belonging to Heinzman, drifting slowly, had
sucked down into the corner toward the power canal where, caught against
the