Down the road a quarter-mile, just before the trail turned off to the
mill, Bob and his guide, who was riding down the mountain, passed a man
on horseback. He rode a carved-leather saddle, without
tapaderos.[Footnote: Stirrup hoods] A rawhide riata hung in its loop on
the right-hand side of the horn. He wore a very stiff-brimmed hat
encircled by a leather strap and buckle, a cotton shirt, and belted
trousers tucked into high-heeled boots embroidered with varied patterns.
He was a square-built but very wiry man, with a bold, aggressive,
half-hostile glance, and rode very straight and easy after the manner of
the plains cowboy. A pair of straight-shanked spurs jingled at his
heels, and he wore a revolver.

"Shelby," explained the guide, after this man had passed. "Simeon
Wright's foreman with these cattle you been hearing about. He ain't
never far off when there's something doing. Guess he's come to see about
how's his fences."

XI

Bob rode jubilantly into camp. The expedition had taken him all the
afternoon, and it was dropping dusk when he had reached the mill.

"We can get busy," he cried, waving the permit at Welton. "Here it is!"

Welton smiled. "I knew that, my boy," he replied, "and we're already
busy to the extent of being ready to turn her loose to-morrow morning.
I've sent down a yard crew to the lower end of the flume; and I've
started Max to rustling out the teams by 'phone."

Next day the water was turned into the flume. Fifty men stood by.
Rapidly the skilled workmen applied the clamps and binders that made of
the boards a compact bundle to be given to the rushing current. Then
they thrust it forward to the drag of the water. It gathered headway,
rubbing gently against the flume, first on one side, then on the other.
Its weight began to tell; it gathered momentum; it pushed ahead of its
blunt nose a foaming white wave; it shot out of sight grandly, careening
from side to side. The men cheered.

"Well, we're off!" said Bob cheerfully.

"Yes, we're off, thank God!" replied Welton.

From that moment the affairs of the new enterprise went as well as could
be expected. Of course, there were many rough edges to be smoothed off,
but as the season progressed the community shaped itself. It was indeed
a community, of many and diverse activities, much more complicated, Bob
soon discovered, than any of the old Michigan logging camps. A great
many of the men brought their families. These occupied sep