We both cleaned up a bit and went out to dinner. I found he had done a good deal of planning. He knew what he wanted but did not know exactly how to get it. He was firm in the plan of getting the saw-mill we had seen in the unclaimed freight house onto the deck of the Fearsome and going up the river for the double purpose of making lumber from the "floaters," but most of all to have an excuse for getting into Becker & Co.'s plant. He was very sober most of the time, even morose, but occasionally his youthful buoyancy and humor would break out in the most surprising and delightful way.

We canvassed the details of using the motor to run the saw, and decided that we would try it the next day.

"But, Hiram, suppose the timber people insist on your going back for another load? They can force you."

"They know, or think, we are still tied up with litigation. Besides—can't you explain to some one—a few days will turn the trick," he reasoned. "After we get Becker we may want to see them as badly as they want to see us," he added, with an eye for the main chance.

"Hiram, have you seen or heard from Anna Bell Morgan?" I asked suddenly to surprise him.

"No, I haven't—but as the time approaches—and you know it is coming—when I can go back to her with clean hands, I feel as though I can hardly contain myself. That's what keeps me up and doing; of course, I want to make out the Gold-Beater as a damned poor prophet about my future, but the main thing is her. Do you know, I actually feel her beside me urging me on and making me do things. It will be my happiest day when I can go back to her clean—actually clean." While he spoke he was digging away at the remnants of the great steak he had consumed, and for the first time I saw the harbingers of real manhood as he looked at me through eyes unabashed and unashamed.

The next day was a very busy one. He collected his freight and we moved the Fearsome to dock near the unclaimed freight house. I arranged with Superintendent Kitchell by telephone to take the sawmill, and by night it was bolted to the deck, with power from the motor applied. A derrick with outrigging, so that a log could be grappled and brought to the deck by power, and laid on the saw carriage to be solidly locked down for its terrible shining fangs that become invisible in full career, moving through a dirty, slimy log.

"Yes," Superintendent Kitchell had said to me when I asked him about my clerk, "I have taken Miss Bascom into my private office and found work for her there—perfectly safe any time you want her," he assured me, after getting a brief account of our progress.

At the first sign of daylight the next morning we left the dock with our queer looking craft and started up the river. Through an employment agency Hiram had secured three additional men, a sawyer and two laborers.

Hiram's interest amounted to intense excitement when the first log was cut. He had waited until he saw an unusually promising one go through. One of the laborers rowed to it, fastened the grapples and it seemed to want to come aboard, as though tired of life in the river, and there it lay quietly, without one flinch before the saw that passed through it. The sawyer understood his business, four slab cuts were made skillfully, the log squared and finally reduced to wide, clean, inch boards and stored below in less than ten minutes. Hiram found it hard to contain himself. His intense joy and elation threatened his dignity. He had made something useful, valuable, beautiful, with the delicate odor of the spring woods, from hitherto waste material. I knew what would have happened had we been alone. He would have tried to throw on me his now brawny person and pummel me from sheer exuberance.

"Ben," he said, in a tense undertone, "over five hundred feet of lumber in that log that they will mob us to get at five cents a foot." I knew he wanted to cut a big caper and cavort. "Twenty-five dollars, Ben, in less than ten minutes. Say, if Becker don't fall for cheap lumber—well, we'll get him sure with such bait, and the bayou back of his place is full of logs—we won't be there an hour before he comes for it—just you watch. We can be there by to-morrow morning," he went on, his eyes roaming the river on both sides for another good log that had eluded the lumber men in the long reaches of the Mississippi as far back as the Great Lakes.

That night we tied up at a bank across the river and a little below Becker & Co.'s plant. It had been a busy day and every one except Hiram was tired and glad to stop for supper. I was sitting aft smoking when I noticed him come up from below, looking for me.

"I've been down taking stock and checking up the day," he began, squatting down before me on his heels, keeping his pipe in his mouth. "We captured just thirty-nine logs, you know a few of them had rotten centers, but we've got over twenty thousand feet of clear lumber besides nearly three thousand feet of culls. Figure it out at fifty dollars—it's worth more delivered—eleven hundred dollars—first day—all amateurs—we've got the big idea working."

"Why do you say we, Hiram? I claim no credit or interest or wages; I'm paid—it is your plan—don't be so modest."

"Yes, I did get the idea of capturing this waste, but how far would I have got alone—a hundred and twenty-five dollars per from the railroad and a certainty of being accused of stealing. In a thousand years I never will be charged with ingratitude—if we win, you've got——"

"The weak spot, Hiram, is that you will soon clean the river of logs, and then what? Sit still and wait for the once-a-year highwater to bring them down?" I asked, interrupting him purposely.

"Wait till we get Becker over there," he said, suddenly sobering and looking across the river, but making no other sign—something as a wolf looks at his prey within easy reach. "It's a hundred and fifty miles from here to the Gulf and lots of logs all the way. But with our big job done, once get actually free, and we run out of logs, something will turn up; in fact I've got another idea hatching. Do you see the foundation he has started over there? That's why he must have lumber. Doesn't his plant remind you of a quarantine station—or a pest house?" He asked this question as though he did not expect an answer.