" it drawled.

Fox's face lighted and he extended both hands.

"Well, Tally!" he cried. "You old snoozer!"

The man was upward of sixty years of age, but straight and active. His
features were tanned a deep mahogany, and carved by the years and
exposure into lines of capability and good humour. In contrast to this
brown his sweeping white moustache and bushy eyebrows, blenched flaxen
by the sun, showed strongly. His little blue eyes twinkled, and fine
wrinkles at their corners helped the twinkles. His long figure was so
heavily clothed as to be concealed from any surmise, except that it was
gaunt and wiry. Hands gnarled, twisted, veined, brown, seemed less like
flesh than like some skilful Japanese carving. On his head he wore a
visored cap with an extraordinary high crown; on his back a rather dingy
coat cut from a Mackinaw blanket; on his legs trousers that had been
"stagged" off just below the knees, heavy German socks, and shoes nailed
with sharp spikes at least three-quarters of an inch in length.

"Thought you were up in the woods!" Fox was exclaiming. "Where's
Fagan?"

"He's walkin' white water," replied the old man.

"Things going well?"

"Damn poor," admitted Tally frankly. "That is to say, the Whitefish
branch is off. There's trouble with the men. They're a mixed lot. Then
there's old Meadows. He's assertin' his heaven-born rights some more.
It's all right. We're on their backs. Other branches just about down."

There followed a rapid exchange of which Bob could make little--talk of
flood water, of "plugging" and "pulling," of "winging out," of "white
water." It made no sense, and yet somehow it thrilled him, as at times
the mere roll of Greek names used to arouse in his breast vague emotions
of grandeur and the struggle of mighty forces.

Still talking, the two men began slowly to move toward the inner office.
Suddenly Fox seemed to remember his companion's existence.

"By the way, Jim," he said, "I want you to know one of our new men,
young Mr. Orde. You've worked for his father. This is Jim Tally, and
he's one of the best rivermen, the best woodsman, the best boss of men
old Michigan ever turned out. He walked logs before I was born."

"Glad to know you, Mr. Orde," said Tally, quite unmoved.

V

The two left Bob to his own devices. The old riverman and the
astonishingly thawed and rejuvenated Mr. Fox disappeared in the private
office. Bob proffered a question to the busy Collins, disc