beat them vigorously.

"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."

"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired Bob.

"They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn't they can bunk
together."

Bob walked to the edge of the stream. It was not very wide, yet at this
point it carried from three to six or eight feet of water, according to
the bottom. A few logs were stranded along shore. Two or three more
floated by, the forerunners of the drive. Bob could see where the
highest water had flung debris among the bushes, and by that he knew
that the stream must be already dropping from its freshet.

It was now late in the afternoon. The sun dipped behind a cold and
austere hill-line. Against the sky showed a fringe of delicate popples,
like spray frozen in the rise. The heavens near the horizon were a cold,
pale yellow of unguessed lucent depths, that shaded above into an
equally cold, pale green. Bob thrust his hands in his pockets and
turned back to where the drying fire, its fuel replenished, was leaping
across the gathering dusk.

Immediately after, the driving crews came tramping in from upstream.
They paid no attention to the newcomers, but dove first for the tent,
then for the fire. There they began to pull off their lower garments,
and Bob saw that most of them were drenched from the waist down. The
drying racks were soon steaming with wet clothes.