The mill was to be started at noon. The Masons and Tot Singleton, Alice Fair--who was still dazzlingly pretty--and her father had come out to see it. Whitney Fair now owned a controlling interest in the company, which was no fault of Colonel Mason's, and he wasn't going to miss anything. Physically, Fair was a big fellow, corpulent and florid, with an unlikeable cleft in his chin and eyes that were a little too small for the rest of his features. Promptly at twelve o'clock the great whistle blew and awoke ten thousand echoes from the walls of the basin; Progress the Brobdignagian was once more defying the spirits of the wilds. The sawyer threw a log to the carriage by means of a powerful steam apparatus; he thrust his main lever forward, and the foot-wide ribbon of steel dove into the wood with a scream like that of some victorious medieval warrior. The edgers and trimmers and slashers began to roar intermittently; it was like the quarreling of demons. Fine yellow poplar panel stock began to drift down the transfer chains and to where an inspector stood with a new rule in one hand and a new tally-book in the other. [Illustration] The Masons and the Fairs shook Wolfe's grimy hands in congratulation. The humming of machinery and the sounds of the saws made speech impossible; but the man who had built the mill understood. Then Wolfe missed Tot Singleton, and wondered where she had gone. Her absence was, somehow, a fly in this ointment. He left the Masons and the Fairs, and went down the outside stairway to the ground. The Singletons met him in a body. He found himself on old Alex's shoulders, while the rest of them cheered. When he was set on his feet, Granny Wolfe appeared with her staff and her dog; she put her arms proudly around his neck, drew his head down and kissed him on the forehead. "Granmaw's so happy today, honey," she told him brokenly, "'at she could jest drap dead in her consarned old tracks. Kiss grammaw!" He did, quite affectionately. Old Grandpap Bill Singleton then shook his hand as heartily as his poor strength would permit, and said to him, "Well done! You shorely ain't a slothful servant." But the fly was still in this ointment of Wolfe's. Tot had stolen away to keep from meeting him. She was still angry with him, and the thought was oddly annoying! His footsteps led him, it seemed without the aid of his will, up the creek and to the stately old willow that still towered over its bar of pure white sand. He came upon Tot standing motionless against the body of the gently whispering tree. She met his eager gaze with a pair of blue eyes that were half-curious and half-defiant. It was Tot that spoke first. "I understood that the mill was to be set in the very center o' the basin. This tree is in the very center o' the basin. Why didn't you put your mill here, Mr. Wolfe?" He stared at her. Then he took a sort of grip on himself.