But the little man had been figuring, too, and his arrangements were more elaborate and more nearly complete than McGann suspected. That very morning he sauntered leisurely out over the rear logs, his hands in his pockets. Every once in a while he stopped to utter a few low-voiced comments to one or another of the men. The person addressed first looked extremely astonished, then shouldered his peevie and started for camp, leaving the diminished rear crew a prey to curiosity. Soon the word went about, “Day and night work,” they whispered, though it was a little difficult to see the difference in ultimate effectiveness between a half crew working all the time and a whole crew working half the time. About this stage Daly began to worry. He took the train to Grand Rapids, anxiety written deep in his brows. When he saw the little inadequate crew pecking in a futile fashion at the logs winged out over the shallows, he swore fervidly and sought Jimmy. Jimmy appeared calm. “We’ll get ’em out all right, Mr. Daly,” said he. “Get ’em out!” growled Daly. “Sure! but when? We ain’t got all summer this season. Those logs have got to hit our booms in fourteen days or they’re no _good_ to us!” “You’ll have ’em,” assured Jimmy. Such talk made Daly tired, and he said so. “Why, it’ll take you a week to get her over those infernal shallows,” he concluded. “You got to get more men, Jimmy.” “I’ve tried,” answered the boss. “They ain’t no more men to be had.” “Suffering Moses!” groaned the owner. “It means the loss of a fifty-thousand-dollar contract to me. You needn’t tell me. I’ve been on the river all my life. I _know_ you can’t get them off inside of a week.” “I’ll have ’em off to-morrow morning, but it’ll cost a little something,” asserted Jimmy calmly. Daly stared to see if the man was not crazy. Then he retired in disgust to the city, where he began to adjust his ideas to a loss on his contract. At sundown the rear crew quit work, and swarmed to the white encampment of tents on the river bank. There they hung wet clothes over a big skeleton framework built around a monster fire and ate a dozen eggs apiece as a side dish to supper and smoked pipes of strong “Peerless” tobacco and swapped yarns and sang songs and asked questions. To the latter they received no satisfactory replies. The crew that had been laid off knew nothing. It supposed it was to go to work after supper. After supper, however, Jimmy told it to turn in and get a little more sleep. It did turn in, and speedily forgot to puzzle. At midnight Jimmy entered the big tent quietly with a lantern, touching each of the fresh men on the shoulder. They arose without comment, and followed him outside. There they were given tools. Then the little band defiled silently down river under the stars.