The White Desert

hy

might better be able to pass him and greet him with a formal nod instead of a more friendly acknowledgment. And this was the girl who, an afternoon before, had sat beside him on the worn old bench at the side of Ba'tiste's cabin and picked thorns from the palm of his hand,-thorns from the stems of wild roses which she had brought him! The enigma was too grea

r's to

s features suddenly had grown haggard. He stumbled slightly as he made t

pinks of Mount Taluchen, yet seeing none of it. The big man boomed a greeting, a

"bring to him the petite Medaine to make him laugh and be happy." Then, seeing that the man was struggling vainly for a semblance of cheeriness, he slid beside him on the bench and tou

ackburn

hey work for Blackburn, who is in Ch

ked up now with new

sawing in a month. The rest, the big

then!" But Ba'tis

e has been try' to sell eet for five year. Eet is no

n five acres? Where wil

shrugged h

y know what t

oing to start sawing in a month, and that a bigger plant is going up

S

shook

My timber stretches back from the lake for eight miles; they either will have to go beyond that and truck in the logs for that distance, which would be ruinous as far as profits are concerned, or content themselves with scrub pine and sapling spruce. I don

t is

n wh

pulled long at his grizzled beard, regarding the wo

ge. Peuff! We shall fin' out, you and me and mon a

mean he's

urried. He get a telephone

he

'sieu Shuler is curious, and he listen in while they, what-you-say, chew up the rag. Eet is

d? W

know abo

shook

ne would make the distance between Denver and Salt Lake so short that the country would build up like wild fire. He got them to put in a switch from above Tabernacle

anadian. "Peuff! When they start to bu

didn't know the

s one. Eet shall come through the mountains with a six-mile tunnel, at Carrow Peak where they have work already one, two,

l this goin

hrugged his

that shall be? No one know. But the survey, eet is made. The land,

Thayer could have raised the money. He was sick of the thing and wanted to get rid of it. I had gone into the real estate business, never dreaming but that some day the mill would be sold and off our hands. Then-then my trouble came along, and

would you know whether he did it or not? Heh? Could you know if the sawyer robbed you of fifty feet on ever' log? No? Then we shall learn. To

t think s

y n

a curt nod and averted eyes. "Maybe

go into the forest.

rom years long gone. Beside the road ran the rickety track which served as a spur from the main line of the railroad, five miles from camp,-the ties rotten, the plates loosened and the rails but faintly free from rust; silent testimony of the fact that cars traveled but seldom toward the market, that

he said. "Tw

ughed shortly. "Things will have to happen and happ

S

essary, spending my time, instead, in rounding up business. He had been my father's manager, and I naturally felt that he would give every bit of his attention to my business. I didn't know that he had other schemes

ld man was silent for a moment. "Old Ba'tiste, he has

they were in view of the long, smooth mound of sawdust leading to the squat, rambling saw shed. A moment more and the bunk house, its unpainted clapboards blackened

thing they do. Then remember. Ba'tist

ood aside until the carriages should shunt them toward the sawyer and the tremendous, revolving wheel which was to convert them into "board feet" of lumber. Hurrying "off-bearers", or slab-carriers, white with sawdust, scampered away from the consuming saw, dragging the bark and slab-sides to a sm

n, through the sheer force of the blade, pulled on until brownness became whiteness, the cylindrical shape a lopsided thing with one long, glaring, white mark; to be shunted back upon

ore away a slab-side. Then a touch on the arm and he followed Ba'tiste without. The Canadian wandered thoughtfully about a moment, at

u Houston, he will, what-you-s

hy

hen the bark, eet is sliced off. He take too much. Eet is so easy. And then-look." He drew his hand from its place

the mill an inch and an eighth thick to allow for

ifference on a big log. Eight cuts of

I don't m

o much. They make eight-inch boards where there should be ten, a

it quietly. The necessity for his

en on the

lf against the sky, twisted and warped, the offal o

k, the lumber twist. Eet is so easy-when

of actual logging experience, disgusted with the business and his contract with the dead. The first year and a half of the fight had passed,-a losing proposition; Barry could see why now, in warped lumber and thick-cut boards, in broken machinery and unfulfill

they know that with the mill out of the way, and the whole thing a disappointment, that I should be willing to contract my timber to them and lease the flume. Th

ed his head in sage approva

lips went

the last