"That's about enough!" he warned, raising his weapon, his face
suffused and angry. The red-headed man, quite unafraid, rose slowly
from the log and advanced, bare-handed, his small eyes narrowed and
watchful.

But immediately a dozen men interfered.

"Dry up!" advised the grizzled old-timer--Tom North by name. "You,
Purdy, set down; and you, young squirt, subside! If you're going to
have ructions, why, have 'em, but not on drive. If you don't look
out, I'll set you both to rustling wood for the doctor."

At this threat the belligerents dropped muttering to their places.
The wind continued to blow, the fire continued to flare up and down,
the men continued to smoke, exchanging from time to time desultory
and aimless remarks. Only Tom North carried on a consecutive, low-
voiced conversation with another of about his own age.

"Just the same, Jim," he was saying, "it is a little tough on the
boys--this new sluice-gate business. They've been sort of expectin'
a chance for a day or two at Redding, and now, if this son of a gun
of a wind hangs out, I don't know when we'll make her. The shallows
at Bull's was always bad enough, but this is worse."

"Yes, I expected to pick you up 'way below," admitted Jim, whose
"turkey," or clothes-bag, at his side proclaimed him a newcomer.
"Had quite a tramp to find you."

"This stretch of slack water was always a terror," went on North,
"and we had fairly to pike-pole every stick through when the wind