The White Desert

t be until-what-you-say-the last dog, eet is dead. Come! We will

ff at the far end, a log slid down a skidway, and with a booming splash struck the water, to bury itself for a hundred feet, only to rise at last, and bobbing, go to join others of its kind, drifting toward the dam with the current of the stream which formed the lake. In t

many minutes, and the booming of the splash struck forth into the hills to be echoed and re-echo

"It takes about three logs to m

sieu Houston

a crew upon whom he could depend for honesty, at least. How the rest of the system was to work out, he did not know. How he was to sell the lumber which he intended milling, how he was to look after both the manufacturing and the disposing of his product was something beyo

straighter, longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the man at his side. A moment before, th

n when the crowd, eet gathers about some one who has been hurt. He waits until there had been a fire, and then he comes in and grows first, along with the aspen

the wagon, pulling forth an axe and heavy, cross-cut saw as he did so. A half-hour later, Golema

xe, "you cut heem as far above the ground as

e an overc

is called the undercut. Eet makes t

saw, Barry working on the other end with his good arm. Ten minutes of work and they switched to the other side. Here no "undercut"

ok

bs, and the tree proper crashing to the ground in the opposite direction to which it should have fallen, breaking as it came. A moment Ba'tiste stood, with his arm still about the younger man, waiting for the dead branches, severed from other

e at last. "That tree, he is not ma

ntered fragments of the spruce, sud

a railroad spike drive

e rusty spike, then hurried to a minute examination of the

now, each jutting forth at a place where

e is not strong. When the winter come, last year, he split inside, from the frost, where the spike, he spread the grai

y the s

e, to squint and stare, to shin a few feet up a trunk now and then, examining every protuberance, every round, bulbous scar.

number had run to a score, all within a small radius. Ba'tiste, more excited than ever, ranged off into the woods, leaving Barry to dig at the trees abou

section," he said finally. "I have cru

ould trees

hunter at the mill to look the other way-eef he knows what the boss want. Eet

s lips. This was the explanation of b

necessary for an 'accident' to happen, merely send out

d tree. "Eet is a good job. The spike, they are driven deep in the wood, they are punched away in, so the bark, eet will close over them. If the iron

n Th

y n

dn't have to fill a whole section of a forest full of sp

id eet-maybe he figure on the time whe

an entirely new crew. Then I'm coming back to drop this masquerade I've been carrying on-and if you'll help me-run this place myself. T

id a what-you-say-large bite! Now," he walked toward

look around the place. I want to get lined

re came the sound of hammers and of saws. They stopped, and staring through the scraggly trees, made out the figures of half a dozen men busily at work upon the erection of a low, rambling building

new m

lumber. It's a cinch they didn't tran

Many things can happen

d sheds. Houston leaped from the wagon to start a census and to begin his preparations for a cleaning-out of the whole establishment. But at the door of the commissary he whirled, staring. A buggy w

s, her full, yet cold lips parted, her olive-skinned cheeks enlivened by a flush of excitement as Houston came to her, forgetful o

gasped. "W

ing effect on Houston, "that you weren't hurt very bad. Your memory cam