"Did you lose much lumber?" "A couple of hundred dollars' worth, I reckon. We came close to losing a lot more, but the chains held pretty good." "I guess we're lucky that we didn't go to the bottom." "Being filled up with lumber, the _Elizabeth_ couldn't sink very well. But we might have become water-logged and been washed up somewhere along the shore. We came out of it, all told, pretty well." For the balance of the day the air remained cool. At midnight came a strong but steady breeze, and once again the schooner plowed along on her way to Detroit. "I don't know that I would care to work on a lumber boat," said Owen, on the day following, when the sun shone as warmly as ever. "It's too monotonous." "Not when there's a storm on," replied Dale, laughing. "You know what I mean. Now, in the forest there is a constant change, and the place is full of plant and animal life. Here, one wave is exactly like the next." "Not a bit of it," said a deck hand standing near. "Every wave is different. But trees in a big woods are all alike." "Which shows that everything is as you look at it," declared Dale. "The lumberman was cut out for the woods, and the sailor for the sea, and there you are." Captain Dacker wished to make a brief stop at Port Huron, and did so. Then the course was continued to the St. Clair River, and one day later the schooner swept into Lake St. Clair. Two hours later they came in sight of the factories of Detroit, with their many smoking chimneys, and then, running past Belle Isle, they tied up at a large lumber dock; and the trip on the lumber boat came to an end. CHAPTER XXIII OFF FOR OREGON "Here we are back in Detroit, Owen, and just about as far as we were when we first came." "Excepting that we have had two disagreeable experiences," replied Owen. "Two?" "Yes; first my uncle, and then the storm--and I don't know but that the experience at the camp was the worst," added Owen, a little regardless of his grammar. "Oh, well, let us forget that, Owen. I believe in looking ahead, not behind." "I shouldn't like to run into another man like Uncle Jack Hoover." "Nor I. And I doubt if there are many such men around." The young lumbermen had put up at a cheap but good hotel. Their ready money was running low, but they did not feel like touching the amount they had put in the bank. "We must find something before the week is out," continued Owen, after a pause. "Do you think it would do any good to write to Mr. Wilbur?" "I've been thinking of him. Didn't somebody say he had an interest in a Michigan lumber concern?" "Mr. Paxton said he held shares in the Lakeside Consolidated Lumber Company. A good many other folks own shares in that concern, too." "We might hunt up that company. On the strength of Mr. Wilbur's name they might give us a job." "That's so! Why didn't we think of that before!" cried Owen. "Let us call at the offices without delay."