Tarboe nodded. "It was touch and go. I guess it was the hardest thing I
ever tried since I've been working for you, but it's come off all right,
hasn't it?" He waved a hand to the workmen on the river, to the tumbling
rushes of logs and timber. Then he looked far up the stream, with hand
shading his brown eyes to where a crib-or raft-was following the eager
stream of logs. "It's easy going now," he added, and his face had a look
of pleasure.

"What's your position, and what's your name?" asked John Grier.

"I'm head-foreman of the Skunk Nest's gang--that's this lot, and I got
here--just in time! I don't believe you could have done it, Mr. Grier.
No master is popular in the real sense with his men. I think they'd have
turned you down. So it was lucky I came."

A faint smile hovered at his lips, and his eyes brooded upon the busy
gangs of men. "Yes, I've had a lot of luck this time. There's nothing
like keeping your head cool and your belly free from drink." Now he
laughed broadly. "By gosh, it's all good! Do you know, Mr. Grier, I
came out here a wreck eight years ago. I left Montreal then with a spot
in my lungs, that would kill me, they said. I've never seen Montreal
since, but I've had a good time out in the woods, in the shanties in the
winters; on the rivers in the summer. I've only been as far East as this
in eight years."

"What do you do in the winter, then?"

"Shanties-shanties all the time. In the summer this; in the Fall taking
the men back to the shanties. Bossing the lot; doing it from love of the