The men obeyed without question, and in a moment were streaming toward the jam. Besides command in Bainbridge’s voice, there was optimistic confidence which stirred these rough-and-ready river hogs. Because Schaeffer ordered it they had dawdled along fruitlessly for several days, knowing perfectly well that the jam was beyond any hope from picking, and that dynamite was the only thing which would stir it. Superficially they had enjoyed these days of loafing, but deep down in their hearts had lingered a feeling of personal shame that a gang of supposedly A-1 lumberjacks should be knowingly throwing away their time in this manner. The youngster with the bold blue eyes and curly yellow hair went with the rest, but more slowly, perhaps, and biting his lip as he strode away. His face was flushed darkly ad his muscular hands tightly clenched at the thought of having allowed himself to be called down in this humiliating manner, without even a word of retort. Even now he did not know why he had done it. The fact that the newcomer was Bob Bainbridge was not a thing entirely to influence his independent soul. There was something else--some quality in the man himself that had made him knuckle down as he had never done before. Puzzled, chagrined, scowling blackly, he slouched after his comrades, hands thrust deep in trousers pockets, and feet kicking at roots or hummocks--for all the world like a spoiled, sullen schoolboy. Bainbridge was, by this time, utterly oblivious to the man’s very existence. He had thrust from his mind every thought save the immediate pressing need of starting the jam, and to this end he bent every effort. While Jerry Calker was making ready the dynamite cartridges, Bob went out on the great mass of logs piled up like a heap of gigantic jackstraws, and inspected it hastily but thoroughly. It was he who directed the placing of the first blast, and he who was the first to seek cover. He it was who first rushed to the spot in the very midst of that shower of bark and splinters and wood chips raining down after the upheaval of timber had subsided. He saw the whole vast surface of the jam quiver and heave, and for a moment he hoped the shot had been successful. That hope proved groundless, however. The jam settled back into immovability again; they would have to try once more.