“Not what you could notice,” grinned Tim, displaying a split lip and barked knuckles. “But they was Wops or somethin’. We chased ’em into the cook-shanty, where they bide in fear and tremblin’.” “Is there enough moon to load those trucks?” Tim looked at Jim and grinned broadly. “There wouldn’t be for anybody but you, Mr. Ashe, but these here boys ’u’d work for you if it was so dark you couldn’t feel a pin stick into you.” “Leave enough men to hold the gang in the cook-shanty. Take the rest and load. How many trucks can that engine haul down?” “Twenty, on a pinch.” “Pick as much maple as you can,” said Jim. “You’re boss.” Given landings, twoscore men who know how to use cant-hooks can handle an astonishing number of logs in an hour. Twenty trucks were not filled in sixty minutes, but the train was ready before dawn—twenty trucks carrying thirty-five thousand feet of hardwood logs. “Now the cook-shanty,” said Jim. “We need it.” The crew rollicked to the log house which was cook-shanty at one end, bunkhouse at the other. Jim parleyed. “Come out and we’ll let you go,” he called. Thoroughly frightened, the foreigners emerged. “Hit for town,” Jim told them. “Your job’s gone. Start walking and keep it up—we’ll be behind you and it won’t be healthy if we catch up.” Half an hour later Jim’s crew were breakfasting on Moran’s coffee and salt pork. It was a species of humor they could enjoy. The night, with its incidents, had furnished them a story to be told on many evenings in diverse places. “Fifteen men on the train,” Jim ordered. “The rest load the other ten trucks. We’ll be back for ’em if Moran doesn’t eat us somewhere along the road.” Jim rode back in the engine cab, tired, but filled with a notable satisfaction. He knew he had scored heavily, though his victory was by no means permanent. Altogether, perhaps, he was more pleased with himself than the state of affairs quite warranted. The engineer reminded him of this by asking what they were to do for coal when the supply in the tender was exhausted. Jim could give no reply. However, he gave his reply after the train of logs had passed the Diversity Company’s mills, passed them to an accompaniment of cheers and jeers from the men riding on the trucks. For Jim had seen two cars of coal standing on a siding. “There’s our coal,” he said to the engineer. “We’ll borrow it on the way back.” And borrow it they did, calmly, under the noses of the enemy. One more trip to Camp One and return Jim made that day. Another thirty-odd thousand feet of timber was unloaded in his log-yard. He left Tim Bennett in charge, directing him to handle logs as he had never handled them before, and himself went to his office. Beam and Nelson followed him gleefully. But the surprise of the day was supplied by Grierson, who emerged from his bookkeeping lair, his eyes not free from a moisture the origin of which was open to suspicion, and grasped Jim’s hand.