have been out in it."

"I--I don't expect you to attempt what I cannot do myself--"

"If mortal man could live in it, we'd make the attempt without ye,
sir," declared Long Jerry, warmly. "But neither dogs nor men could
find their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a big
blizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in the
backwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and
oxen will have to be shot to save them from starvation. The hunting
will be mighty poor next fall, for the deer and other varmints will
starve to death, too.

"If poor people in the woods don't starve after this storm, it will
be lucky. Why, the last big one we had the Octohac Company had a gang
of fifty men shoveling out a road for twenty miles so as to get tote
teams through with provisions for their camp. And then men had to
drag the tote teams instead of horses, the critters were so near
starved. Ain't that so, Ben?"

"Surest thing you know," agreed one of the other hands. "I remember
that time well. I was working for the Goodwin & Manse Company. There
was nigh a hundred of us on snow-shoes that dragged fodder from the
farmers along Rolling River to feed our stock on, and we didn't get
out enough logs that winter to pay the company for keeping the camp
open."

"That's the way on it, Mr. Cameron," said Long Jerry. "We got to sit
down and wait for a hold-up. Nothing else to do. You kin try
telephoning up and down the line to see if the girls changed their