Buck Moncrossen!" became the slogan of the camp, and with the
lengthening days it became apparent that a record cut was being banked
on the rollways.

It was a wonderful winter for Ethel Manton. The spirit of the big
country entered her blood. More and more she loved the woods, and
learned to respect and admire the rough loyalty of the big men of the
logs.

She had come to call most of them by name, as with a smile and a nod,
or a wave of the hand, she passed them in the timber on her daily
excursions in search of rabbits and ptarmigan. And not a man in the
crew but would gladly have fought to the last breath for "the boss's
girl."

And now the feel of spring was in the air. Each day the sun climbed
higher and higher, and the wind lost its sting. The surface of the snow
softened by day, and high-piled white drifts settled slowly into soggy
masses of saturated, gray slush.

Bill figured that he had nearly fifteen million feet down when he
called off his sawyers and ordered the clean-up. The nights remained
cold, freezing the surface of the sodden snow into a crust of excellent
footing, so that the day's work began at midnight and continued until
the crust softened under the rays of the morning sun.

The men laughed and sang and talked of the drive, and of the waterfront
dives of cities, whose calk-pocked floors spoke the shame of the men of
the logs.

But most of all they talked of the wedding. For as they sat at the
supper-table on the day the last tree fell, the boss entered,
accompanied by the girl.

In a few brief words he told them that he was proud of every man jack
of them; that they were the best crew that ever came into the woods,
and that they had more than earned the bonus.

He told them that he realized he was a greener, and thanked them for
their loyalty and cooeperation, without which his first season as camp
foreman must have been doomed to failure.

Cheer after cheer interrupted his words, and when he took Ethel by the
hand and announced that they were soon to be married in that very room
and invited all hands to the wedding, their cheers drowned his voice
completely.

But when the girl tried to speak to them, choked in confusion, and with
her eyes brimming with tears, extended both hands and gasped: "Oh, I--I
love you all!" the wild storm of applause threatened to tear the roof
from the log walls.

It was Ethel's idea that they should be married in the woods. Her love
for the wild country