Bob,
more as the most obvious remark than from any knowledge or conviction.

"Wouldn't you?" Welton's eyes twinkled. "Well, son, after you've knocked
around a while you'll find that every man is good for something
somewhere. Only you can't put a square peg in a round hole."

"How much longer will the high water last?" asked Bob.

"Hard to say."

"Well, I hope you get the logs out," Bob ventured.

"Sure we'll get them out!" replied Welton confidently. "We'll get them
out if we have to go spit in the creek!" With which remark the subject
was considered closed.

About four o'clock of the afternoon they came out on a low bluff
overlooking a bottom land through which flowed a little stream
twenty-five or thirty feet across.

"That's the Cedar Branch," said Welton, "and I reckon that's one of the
camps up where you see that smoke."

They deserted the road and made their way through a fringe of thin brush
to the smoke. Bob saw two big tents, a smouldering fire surrounded by
high frames on which hung a few drying clothes, a rough table, and a
cooking fire over which bubbled tremendous kettles and fifty-pound lard
tins suspended from a rack. A man sat on a cracker box reading a
fragment of newspaper. A boy of sixteen squatted by the fire.

This man looked up and nodded, as Welton and his companion approached.

"Where's the drive, doctor?" asked the lumberman.

"This is the jam camp," replied the cook. "The jam's upstream a mile or
so. Rear's back by Thompson's somewheres."

"Is there a jam in the river?" asked Bob with interest. "I'd like to
see it."

"There's a dozen a day, probably," replied Welton; "but in this case he
just means the head of the drive. We call that the 'jam.'"

"I suppose Darrell's at the rear?" Welton asked the cook.

"Yep," replied that individual, rising to peer into one of his cavernous
cooking utensils.

"Who's in charge here?"

"Larsen"

"H'm," said Welton. "Well," he added to himself, "he's slow, safe and
sure, anyway."

He led the way to one of the tents and pulled aside the flap. The ground
inside was covered by a welter of tumbled blankets and clothes.

"Nice tidy housekeeping," he grinned at Bob. He picked out two of the
best blankets and took them outside where he hung them on a bush and
beat them vigorously.

"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."

"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired Bob.

"They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn