"I can think of one reason," his father answered. "You won't feel like working to-morrow, and there's a good deal of log-hauling to be done." "We'll be ready to start as usual," persisted Harry. "Then you can go on that condition, but you'll have to stick to it. I don't mind your getting a few hours' shooting now and then, but I expect you to be ranchers first of all when there's work on hand." Harry repeated his assurance and Mr. Oliver made no more objections. When they had heaved up the next log Jake turned to the boys. "There'll be a moon and I guess you're not going to do much on the flats," he said. "You want to cut two very short paddles and put some spruce brush that you can lie on in the canoe. Then if you keep quite flat you might creep up on a flock of ducks in one of the channels. You can't do it if you use the ordinary paddle kneeling." He split them two flat slabs off the butt of a cedar, but Mr. Oliver, who was chopping nearby, looked around when Harry began to hack them into shape. "What are those for?" he asked. "Paddles," Harry answered with some hesitation. "You're logging just now," said his father dryly. "I want another tier put up before it's dark." Harry laid down the half-finished paddles and grinned at Frank. "I guess dad's quite right, but his way of staying with it gets riling now and then." Frank laughed. One day when Harry had hurt his knee and there was no work of any consequence on hand, Mr. Oliver had taken him out into the bush, and the boy had a painful recollection of the journey they had made together. No thicket was too dense or thorny for the rancher to scramble through, and he prowled about the steepest slopes and amongst the thickest tangles of fallen logs with the same unflagging persistency until at the first shot he killed a deer. Mr. Oliver was, as his son and Jake sometimes said, a stayer, one who invariably put through what he took in hand. He was the kind of person Frank aspired to become, though he was discovering that he was not likely to accomplish it by taking things easily. Success, it seemed, could only be attained by ceaseless effort and constant carefulness. He went on with the logging, though the work was remarkably heavy, and it was an occupation he had no liking for, but he helped Harry to finish the paddles after supper. Then they carried a bundle of spruce twigs down to the canoe, and, though there was not much wind, tied a reef in the sloop's mainsail, which Mr. Oliver had insisted on before they loosed the moorings.