the occasional grunt or brief comment of a riverman alone
broke the calm of evening. Now that the sluice-gate was down and the
water had ceased temporarily to flow over it, the work went faster.
Orde, watching with the eye of an expert, vouchsafed to the taciturn
Newmark that he thought they'd make it.

Near midnight, however, a swaying lantern was seen approaching. Orde,
leaping to his feet with a curse at the boy on watch, heard the sound of
wheels. A moment later, Daly's bulky form stepped into the illumination
of the fire.

Orde wandered over to where his principal stood peering about him.

"Hullo!" said he.

"Oh, there you are!" cried Daly angrily. "What in hell you up to here?"

"Running logs," replied Orde coolly.

"Running logs!" shouted Daly, tugging at his overcoat pocket, and
finally producing a much-folded newspaper. "How about this?"

Orde unfolded the paper and lowered it to the campfire. It was an extra,
screaming with wood type. He read it deliberately over.

WAR!

the headline ran.

RIOTING AND BLOODSHED IN THE WOODS

RIVERMEN AND DAM OWNERS CLASH!

There followed a vague and highly coloured statement to the effect that
an initial skirmish had left the field in possession of the rivermen,
in spite of the sheriff and a large posse, but that troops were being
rushed to the spot, and that this "high-handed defiance of authority"
would undoubtedly soon be suppressed. It concluded truthfully with the
statement that the loss of life was as yet unknown.

Orde folded up the paper and handed it back.

"Don't you know any better than to get into that kind of a row down
here?" Daly had been saying. "Do you want to bring us up for good here?
Don't you realise that this isn't the northern peninsula? What are you
trying to do, any way?"

"Sure I do," replied Orde placidly. "Come along here till I show you the
situation."

Ten minutes later, Daly, relieved in his mind, was standing by the fire
drinking hot coffee and laughing at Orde's description of Reed's plug
hat.

To Orde's satisfaction, the sheriff did not reappear. Reed evidently now
pinned his faith to the State troops.

All night the work went on, the men spelling each other at intervals of
every few hours. By three o'clock the main abutments had been removed.
The gate was then blocked to prevent its fall when its nether support
should be withdrawn, and two men, leaning over cautiously, began at
arm's-length to deliver their ax