sitting on the shore, went sound asleep after a few mouthfuls and
slumbered with their faces in their plates till a companion kicked them
back into wakefulness. They grinned and were up again!

As for Lida Kennard, she was treated with as much tender care as if she
were a reigning princess on tour. She protested indignantly because
they would not allow her to rough it along with them. They made soft
beds of spruce tips at their camping sites and they gave her the post of
honor in a big bateau.

In the rush of affairs she did not pause to wonder whether she was
offending any of the proprieties by staying on with the drive; she had
become the Flagg spirit incarnate and was not troubling herself with
petty matters.

Old Vittum and Felix were her advisers, and they prized her presence as
an asset of inestimable value; she allowed them to think for her in that
crisis.

"It's a tough life, miss, the best we can make it for you," admitted
Vittum. "But if you can stick and hang till Skulltree is passed it means
that the boys will keep the glory of doing in 'em!"

From rendering service according to her ability they could not prevent
her, though the men protested. She helped the cooks. Hurrying here and
there, following the scattered men of the crews, she tugged great cans
of hot coffee. When the toilers saw her coming and heard her voice they
took desperate chances on the white water, jousting with their pike
poles like knights in a tourney.

She put into the hearts of the crew the passion of derring do!

The drive that spring was not a sordid task--it was high emprise, it was
a joyous adventure!

Then the logs which had raced in the rapids came to the upper reaches of
the slow deadwater of the flowage of the Skulltree dam; the flowage
reached far back that year.

At Skulltree was the crux of the situation, as Flagg had insisted,
ragefully.

From the early days there had been a dam at that point; it was common
property and conserved the water to be loosed to drive logs over the
shallow rapids below.

The Three C's had spent more money on that dam, claiming that bigger
drives needed extra water. The dam had been raised. The flowage vastly
increased the extent of the deadwater, slowing the logs of the
independents, whose towage methods were crude. The changes which had
been made needed the sanction of impending legislation, required the
authority of a charter for which application had been made. In the
meantime the