"I'm very much obliged to you," began Thorpe to the walking-boss,
"and---"

"That's all right," interrupted the latter, "some day you can give
me a job."



Chapter V


For five days Thorpe cut wood, made fires, drew water, swept
floors, and ran errands. Sometimes he would look across the broad
stump-dotted plain to the distant forest. He had imagination. No
business man succeeds without it. With him the great struggle to
wrest from an impassive and aloof nature what she has so long held
securely as her own, took on the proportions of a battle. The
distant forest was the front. To it went the new bands of fighters.
From it came the caissons for food, that ammunition of the frontier;
messengers bringing tidings of defeat or victory; sometimes men
groaning on their litters from the twisting and crushing and
breaking inflicted on them by the calm, ruthless enemy; once a dead
man bearing still on his chest the mark of the tree that had killed
him. Here at headquarters sat the general, map in hand, issuing his
orders, directing his forces.

And out of the forest came mystery. Hunters brought deer on sledges.
Indians, observant and grave, swung silently across the reaches
on their snowshoes, and silently back again carrying their meager
purchases. In the daytime ravens wheeled and croaked about the