"I didn't do it at all. Willy Horse did it, and he is going to have the best job that can be dug up for him, provided my influence has weight with the firm of Wingate & Gray. Tom, it's up to you, now. You are the brains of this establishment. Go to it. I've done my share so far as it has gone." "You have, indeed. How is the equipment being brought in?" "By mule teams. I reckon, too, that they will have a fine tune getting in here on the trail that leads to the Dusenbery Company's works above our section and--" "I say, Mister Lieutenant, do I understand ye to say that a pa'cel of lumberjacks is comin' here?" interrupted Joe Shafto. "Yes." "Then I quits right now. Don't want no truck with them critters." "That's all right, old dear. You just keep right on with the outfit, and if a lumberjack so much as looks at you, set the bear on him. I know what Henry can do in that direction, having had a run-in with him myself." "Don't ye 'old-dear' me!" growled Joe. "Started that agin, have ye? Miss Wingate, if ye don't tame that husband of yers with a club, I will." Joe winked at Nora as she said it. "Leave him to me, Mrs. Shafto. Hippy, go wash your face. You are a perfect sight. I'm positively ashamed of you." "That's all right, Nora. That relieves me of the necessity of being ashamed of myself. Joe, you merely imagine that you dislike lumberjacks. There are some good fellows among them. They aren't all so bad as you paint them," said Hippy soothingly. The forest woman flared up. "I hate the whole pack and pa'cel of 'em! I-hate 'em wuss'n a scalded pup hates vinegar on his back. I'll stay, of course, but I'll sick Henry on 'em if they bothers me; then I'll turn my back and fergit that Henry's chawin' up a human bein'. So there!" The Overland girls laughed merrily, and Grace linking an arm into the guide's led her down to the river where the two sat down, Grace to give Joe Shafto friendly advice, and Joe to accept it as she would from no other member of the Overland Riders. In the meantime Tom and Hippy were discussing their plans. They spent a good part of the day doing so. After dinner Grace and Elfreda paddled up the river in the bark canoe, returning just before suppertime, faces flushed from their exercise, and eyes sparkling. Early next morning Willy Horse and the advance guard of the timber outfit arrived on the scene, as was evidenced by sundry shouts up-river. Tom and Hippy hurried upstream to meet the party, and later in the day the Overland girls came up to watch the work already in progress. A knock-down bunk-house was rapidly going up, and the cook with pots and kettles over a brisk fire in the open was preparing supper for the lumberjacks. The jacks were a hardy two-fisted lot of men, Swedes, Norwegians, French Canadians, half-breeds and a few sturdy Americans, though the latter were greatly outnumbered. Tom was bossing the gang and doing it like a man who had handled lumberjacks before.