hard brown cheeks,
a heavy bleached flaxen moustache, and eyes steady, unwavering, and as
blue as the sky.

"Up in two minutes," he answered, and descended from the pilot house to
shout down a low door leading from the deck into the engine room.

"Harvey," he commanded, "fire her up!"

A tall, good-natured negro reached the upper half of his body from the
low door to seize an armful of the slabs piled along the narrow deck.
Ten minutes later the SPRITE, a cloud of white smoke pouring from her
funnel, was careening down the stretch of the river.

Captain Marsh guided his energetic charge among the logs floating in the
stream with the marvellous second instinct of the expert tugboat man.
A whirl of the wheel to the right, a turn to the left--the craft
heeled strongly under the forcing of her powerful rudder to avoid by
an arm's-length some timbers fairly flung aside by the wash. The
displacement of the rapid running seemed almost to press the water
above the level of the deck on either side and about ten feet from the
gunwale. As the low marshes and cat-tails flew past, Orde noted with
satisfaction that many of the logs, urged one side by the breeze, had
found lodgment among the reeds and in the bayous and inlets. One at a
time, and painfully, these would have to be salvaged.

In a short time the mills' tall smokestacks loomed in sight. The logs
thickened until it was with difficulty that Captain Marsh could thread
his way among them at all. Shortly Orde, standing by the wheel in the
pilot-house, could see down the stretches of the river a crowd of men
working antlike.

"They've got 'em stopped," commented Orde. "Look at that gang working
from boats! They haven't a dozen 'cork boots' among 'em."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Captain Marsh.

"This is a navigable river, isn't it?" replied Orde. "Run through!"

Marsh rang for half-speed and began to nose his way gently through the
loosely floating logs. Soon the tug had reached the scene of activity,
and headed straight for the slender line of booms hitched end to end and
stretching quite across the river.

"I'm afraid we'll just ride over them if we hit them too slow,"
suggested Marsh.

Orde looked at his watch.

"We'll be late for the mail unless we hurry," said he. Marsh whirled
the spokes of his wheel over and rang the engine-room bell. The water
churned white behind, the tug careened.

"Vat you do! Stop!" cried Heinzman from one of the boats.

Or