“Certainly,” replied Thorpe briefly. “Who's going to pay my fare south?” “You are. You can get work at Marquette.” “That ain't a fair shake,” cried the man excitedly. “I'll have no growlers in this camp,” said Thorpe with decision. “By God!” cried the man, “you damned--” “You get out of here!” cried Thorpe with a concentrated blaze of energetic passion that made the fellow step back. “I ain't goin' to get on the wrong side of the law by foolin' with this office,” cried the other at the door, “but if I had you outside for a minute--” “Leave this office!” shouted Thorpe. “S'pose you make me!” challenged the man insolently. In a moment the defiance had come, endangering the careful structure Thorpe had reared with such pains. The young man was suddenly angry in exactly the same blind, unreasoning manner as when he had leaped single-handed to tackle Dyer's crew. Without a word he sprang across the shack, seized a two-bladed ax from the pile behind the door, swung it around his head and cast it full at the now frightened teamster. The latter dodged, and the swirling steel buried itself in the snowbank beyond. Without an instant's hesitation Thorpe reached back for another. The man took to his heels. “I don't want to see you around here again!” shouted Thorpe after him. Then in a moment he returned to the office and sat down overcome with contrition. “It might have been murder!” he told himself, awe-stricken. But, as it happened, nothing could have turned out better. Thorpe had instinctively seized the only method by which these strong men could be impressed. A rough-and-tumble attempt at ejectment would have been useless. Now the entire crew looked with vast admiration on their boss as a man who intended to have his own way no matter what difficulties or consequences might tend to deter him. And that is the kind of man they liked. This one deed was more effective in cementing their loyalty than any increase of wages would have been. Thorpe knew that their restless spirits would soon tire of the monotony of work without ultimate interest. Ordinarily the hope of a big cut is sufficient to keep men of the right sort working for a record. But these men had no such hope--the camp was too small, and they were too few. Thorpe adopted the expedient, now quite common, of posting the results of each day's work in the men's shanty. Three teams were engaged in travoying, and two in skidding the logs, either on the banking ground, or along the road. Thorpe divided his camp into four sections, which he distinguished by the names of the teamsters. Roughly speaking, each of the three hauling teams had its own gang of sawyers and skidders to supply it with logs and to take them from it, for of the skidding teams, one was split;--the horses were big enough so that one of them to a skidway sufficed. Thus three gangs of men were performing each day practically the same work. Thorpe scaled the results, and placed them conspicuously for comparison.