overed himself
free until afternoon, and so went out through the office and into the
clear open air.

He headed at once across the wide sawdust area toward the mill and the
lake. A great curiosity, a great interest filled him. After a moment he
found himself walking between tall, leaning stacks of lumber, piled
crosswise in such a manner that the sweet currents of air eddied through
the interstices between the boards and in the narrow, alley-like spaces
between the square and separate stacks. A coolness filled these streets,
a coolness born of the shade in which they were cast, the freshness of
still unmelted snow lying in patches, the quality of pine with its faint
aromatic pitch smell and its suggestion of the forest. Bob wandered on
slowly, his hands in his pockets. For the time being his more active
interest was in abeyance, lulled by the subtle, elusive phantom of
grandeur suggested in the aloofness of this narrow street fronted by its
square, skeleton, windowless houses through which the wind rattled.
After a little he glimpsed blue through the alleys between. Then a side
street offered, full of sun. He turned down it a few feet, and found
himself standing over an inlet of the lake.

Then for the first time he realized that he had been walking on "made
ground." The water chugged restlessly against the uneven ends of the
lath-like slabs, thousands of them laid, side by side, down to and below
the water's surface. They formed a substructure on which the sawdust
had been heaped. Deep shadows darted from their shelter and withdrew,
following the play of the little waves. The lower slabs were black with
the wet, and from them, too, crept a spicy odour set free by the
moisture. On a pile head sat an urchin fishing, with a long bamboo pole
many sizes too large for him. As Bob watched, he jerked forth diminutive
flat sunfish.

"Good work!" called Bob in congratulation.

The urchin looked up at the large, good-humoured man and grinned.

Bob retraced his steps to the street on which he had started out. There
he discovered a steep stairway, and by it mounted to the tramway above.
Along this he wandered for what seemed to him an interminable distance,
lost as in a maze among the streets and byways of this tenantless city.
Once he stepped aside to give passage to the great horse, or one like
him, and his train of little cars. The man driving nodded to him. Again
he happened on two men unloading similar cars, and passing t