d presently the
jam breaks, and the logs go tumbling into the main, while the
vicious-looking berserker of the water runs back to the shore over the
logs, safe and sound. It is a marvel to the spectator, that men should
manipulate the river so. To him it is a life apart; not belonging to the
life he lives-a passing show.

It was a stark surprise of the river which makes this story possible.
There was a strike at Bunder's Boom--as it was called--between Bunder
and Grier's men. Some foreman of Grier's gang had been needlessly
offensive. Bunder had been stupidly resentful. When Grier's men had
tried to force his hand also, he had resisted. It chanced that, when an
impasse seemed possible to be broken only by force, a telegram came to
John Grier at Montreal telling him of the difficulty. He lost no time in
making his way northwards.

But some one else had come upon the scene. It was Luke Tarboe. He had
arrived at a moment when the Belloc river crowd had almost wrecked
Bunder's Boom, and when a collision between the two gangs seemed
inevitable. What he did remained a river legend. By good temper and
adroitness, he reconciled the leaders of the two gangs; he bought the
freedom of the river by a present to Bunder's daughter; he won Bunder
by four bottles of "Three Star" brandy. When the police from a town a
hundred miles away arrived at the same time as John Grier, it was to
find the Grier and Belloc gangs peacefully prodding side by side.

When the police had gone, John Grier looked Tarboe up and down. The
brown face, the clear, strong brown eyes and the brown hatless head rose
up eighteen inches above his own, making a gallant summit to a robust
stalk.

"Well, you've done easier things than that in your time, eh?" John Grier
asked.

Tarboe nodded. "It was touch and go. I guess it was the hardest thing I
ever tried since I've been working for you, but it's come off all right,
hasn't it?" He waved a hand to the workmen on the river, to the tumbling
rushes of logs and timber. Then he looked far up the stream, with hand
shading his brown eyes to where a crib-or raft-was following the eager
stream of logs. "It's easy going now," he added, and his face had a look
of pleasure.

"What's your position, and what's your name?" asked John Grier.

"I'm head-foreman of the Skunk Nest's gang--that's this lot, and I got
here--just in time! I don't believe you could have done it, Mr. Grier.
No master is popular in the real sense wit