surfaces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.

Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to talk much, and yet
the sum of his information was considerable.

"That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down to Thompson's.
He's a settler. Lives on a little lake.

"There's a deer," he remarked, "over in that thicket against the hill."

Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal bounded away,
waving the white flag of its tail.

"Settlers up here are a confounded nuisance," went on Welton after a
while. "They're always hollering for what they call their 'rights.' That
generally means they try to hang up our drive. The average mossback's a
hard customer. I'd rather try to drive nails in a snowbank than tackle
driving logs through a farm country. They never realize that we haven't
got time to talk it all out for a few weeks. There's one old cuss now
that's making us trouble about the water. Don't want to open up to give
us a fair run through the sluices of his dam. Don't seem to realize that
when we start to go out, we've got to go out in a _hurry_, spite o' hell
and low water."

He went on, in his good-natured, unexcited fashion, to inveigh against
the obstinacy of any and all mossbacks. There was no bitterness in it,
merely a marvel over an inexplicable, natural phenomenon.

"Suppose you _didn't_ get all the logs out this year," asked Bob, at
length. "Of course it would be a nuisance; but couldn't you get them
next year?"

"That's the trouble," Welton explained. "If you leave them over the
summer, borers get into them, and they're about a total loss. No, my
son, when you start to take out logs in this country, you've got to
_take them out!_"

"That's what I'm going in here for now," he explained, after a moment.
"This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had to take over from another firm.
It is an unimproved river, and difficult to drive, and just lined with
mossbacks. The crew is a mixed bunch--some old men, some young toughs.
They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It
really needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for this
little proposition. He's got Darrell in charge. Darrell's a good man on
a big job. Then he feels his responsibility, keeps sober and drives his
men well. But I'm scared he won't take this little drive serious. If he
gets one drink in him, it's all off!"

"I shouldn't think it would pay to put such a man in charge," said