The Riverman | Page 5

a draw, anyway, I should
guess."

"How long you been hung?"
"Just to-day. I expect Jack will be down from the rear shortly. Ought to
see something's wrong when he runs against the tail of this jam of
ours."
At this moment the lugubrious, round-faced man in the derby hat
stepped aside from the row of steaming utensils he had been arranging.
"Grub pile," he remarked in a conversational tone of voice.
The group arose as one man and moved upon the heap of cutlery and of
tin plates and cups. From the open fifty-pound lard pails and kettles
they helped themselves liberally; then retired to squat in little groups
here and there near the sources of supply. Mere conversation yielded to
an industrious silence. Sadly the cook surveyed the scene, his arms
folded across the dirty white apron, an immense mental reservation
accenting the melancholy of his countenance. After some moments of
contemplation he mixed a fizzling concoction of vinegar and soda,
which he drank. His rotundity to the contrary notwithstanding, he was
ravaged by a gnawing dyspepsia, and the sight of six eggs eaten as a
side dish to substantials carried consternation to his interior.
So busily engaged was each after his own fashion that nobody observed
the approach of a solitary figure down the highway of the river. The
man appeared tiny around the upper bend, momently growing larger as
he approached. His progress was jerky and on an uneven zigzag,
according as the logs lay, by leaps, short runs, brief pauses, as a
riverman goes. Finally he stepped ashore just below the camp, stamped
his feet vigorously free of water, and approached the group around the
cooking-fire.
No one saw him save the cook, who vouchsafed him a stately and
lugubrious inclination of the head.
The newcomer was a man somewhere about thirty years of age,
squarely built, big of bone, compact in bulk. His face was burly, jolly,
and reddened rather than tanned by long exposure. A pair of twinkling

blue eyes and a humorously quirked mouth redeemed his countenance
from commonplaceness.
He spread his feet apart and surveyed the scene.
"Well, boys," he remarked at last in a rollicking big voice, "I'm glad to
see the situation hasn't spoiled your appetites."
At this they looked up with a spontaneous answering grin. Tom North
laid aside his plate and started to arise.
"Sit still, Tom," interposed the newcomer. "Eat hearty. I'm going to
feed yet myself. Then we'll see what's to be done. I think first thing
you'd better see to having this wind turned off."
After the meal was finished, North and his principal sauntered to the
water's edge, where they stood for a minute looking at the logs and the
ruffled expanse of water below.
"Might as well have sails on them and be done with it," remarked Jack
Orde reflectively. "Couldn't hold 'em any tighter. It's a pity that old
mossback had to put in a mill. The water was slack enough before, but
now there seems to be no current at all."
"Case of wait for the wind," agreed Tom North. "Old Daly will be
red-headed. He must be about out of logs at the mill. The flood- water's
going down every minute, and it'll make the riffles above Redding a
holy fright. And I expect Johnson's drive will be down on our rear most
any time."
"It's there already. Let's go take a look," suggested Orde.
They picked their way around the edge of the pond to the site of the
new mill.
"Sluice open all right," commented Orde. "Thought she might be
closed."
"I saw to that," rejoined North in an injured tone.

"'Course," agreed Orde, "but he might have dropped her shut on you
between times, when you weren't looking."
He walked out on the structure and looked down on the smooth water
rushing through.
"Ought to make a draw," he reflected. Then he laughed. "Tom, look
here," he called. "Climb down and take a squint at this."
North clambered to a position below.
"The son of a gun!" he exclaimed.
The sluice, instead of bedding at the natural channel of the river, had
been built a good six feet above that level; so that, even with the gates
wide open, a "head" of six feet was retained in the slack water of the
pond.
"No wonder we couldn't get a draw," said Orde. "Let's hunt up old
What's-his-name and have a pow-wow."
"His name is plain Reed," explained North. "There he comes now."
"Sainted cats!" cried Orde, with one of his big, rollicking chuckles.
"Where did you catch it?"
The owner of the dam flapped into view as a lank and lengthy
individual dressed in loose, long clothes and wearing a-top a battered
old "plug" hat, the nap of which