of a mighty
power. The exasperation of delay, the anxiety lest success be lost
through the mulish and narrow-minded obstinacy of one man, the
resentment against another obstacle not to be foreseen and not to be
expected in a task redundantly supplied with obstacles of its own--these
found relief at last.

"By Jove!" breathed Newmark softly to himself. "Don Quixote and the
windmills!" Then he added vindictively, "The old fool!" although, of
course, the drive was not his personal concern.

Only Orde seemed to see the other side. And on Orde the responsibility,
uncertainty, and vexation had borne most heavily, for the success of the
undertaking was in his hands. With a few quick leaps he had gained the
old man's side.

"Look here, Reed," he said kindly, "you can't break this jam. Come
ashore now, and let up. You'll kill yourself."

Reed turned to him, a wild light in his eye.

"Break it!" he pleaded. "You're ruining me. I've got all my money in
that mill."

"Well," said Orde, "we've got a lot of money in our logs too. You
haven't treated us quite right."

Reed glanced frantically toward the flood up stream.

"Come," said Orde, taking him gently by the arm. "There's no reason you
and I shouldn't get along together all right. Maybe we're both a little
hard-headed. Let's talk it over."

He led the old man ashore, and out of earshot of the rivermen.

At the end of ten minutes he returned.

"War's over, boys!" he shouted cheerfully. "Get in and break that jam."

At once the crew swarmed across the log barrier to a point above the
centre pier. This they attacked with their peavies, rolling the top logs
off into the current below. In less than no time they had torn out
quite a hole in the top layer. The river rushed through the opening.
Immediately the logs in the wings were tumbled in from either side.
At first the men had to do all of the work, but soon the river itself
turned to their assistance. Timbers creaked and settled, or rose
slightly buoyant as the water loosened the tangle. Men trod on the edge
of expectation. Constantly the logs shifted, and as constantly the men
shifted also, avoiding the upheavals and grindings together, wary eyes
estimating the correlation of the forces into whose crushing reach a
single misstep would bring them. The movement accelerated each instant,
as the music of the play hastens to the climax. Wood fibres smashed.
The whole mass seemed to sink down and forward into a boiling of