The next morning it occurred to me that, while our plans were made with great care, the weak point was, that if Becker himself was at the plant he might recognize either of us. I mentioned this to Hiram, and for once since I had met him he laughed loud and long.

"I don't believe your mother would recognize you in that greasy, dirt-soaked, bifurcated night dress you wear," he yelled at me, "and the work you owe the barber, too; but look at me—I am worse yet, covered with mud and slime. Besides, I don't believe Becker ever had a good look at me, and if he did he couldn't pick me out as different from any other deckhand now," he said, grinning. Then he looked himself over, at his muddy shoes, browned hands, long hair and unshaved face, and it did seem to him as though, without effort, during the past few days, he had prepared a genuine disguise. Nevertheless we decided it would be safe to allow Captain Marianna to be the spokesman, although the captain should be kept in the dark concerning our real designs. Marianna should sell Becker lumber, cheap for cash, if he bit at our bait.

We sawed one or two logs, then crossed the river and began working up the stream toward the bayou back of Becker's plant, apparently with no more interest in it than if it had been a cemetery. The bayou was, just as Hiram said, full of logs—enough to keep us there for a day at least.

By the noon hour we had worked pretty well into the bayou and in back of the big fertilizer factory, with no apparent attention from it other than a terrible offense to our nostrils. If Becker was there he did not show himself and it began to look as if we would have to make overtures.

But when we had suspended operations for noon-time, a negro with a boat made out from the Becker place and came alongside. He clambered on our deck, but no one paid any attention to him.

"I wants to see de boss," said he to one of our blacks resting well aft.

"You wants to see de Captain? He's up dere somewhares aroun' de wheel-house." We overheard this inquiry and the answer with great interest. This was likely to be the first nibble at our bait.

When the captain was pointed out he acted well the part of a trader who had desirable goods with a liberal demand, but evidenced little interest in the emissary who approached him hat in hand.

"Is you de cap'm?"

"Yes, me da capitan," Marianna replied, assuming strong Italian accent without effort.

"Yas'sa—yas'sa," the darky echoed, looking about the boat, wet, dirty and littered with bark, slabs, and sawdust. "My boss, Mista Becka, wants to know—would like to know," he corrected, "if you kain't cum ashore to see him."

"Whata yo' boss want?—we start upa quick, gotta not much time."

"Wal, he did'n zactly say, but I done reckon as how he wants to see you 'bout somp'n pa'tic'lar."

"Go back, tella da boss we starta to work soon—I talka with him here after we getta da start," the captain said, pointing toward the deck.

"Yas, I'll tell him dat," replied the negro, fidgeting as though his mission had been a failure, but immediately started for his boat.

"You tella heem we be here alla day; he come any time," Marianna called to him as he rowed away.

In about an hour the negro made out again, but this time he had the bulky figure of the man we wanted to see above all others. Of course, while we were running I had to stand by the engine below constantly, while Hiram, anticipating Becker's visit, had taken to a boat ostensibly to look over the logs carefully before fastening the grapples that brought them aboard.

Becker had not been aboard long before it was clear that Hiram had planned better than he knew. There is something about a saw in full career that the most blasÉ cannot resist. He stood watching it for some time. A huge wet and mud-laden log was hauled aboard, laid on the carriage, where steel teeth clenched it down. In a twinkling four side slabs came off and it was transformed into a square timber, clean and white, in strange contrast to the slimy thing it had been but a moment before. Then the whirling teeth began to travel through it with an ease that suggested a much softer material, laying out inch boards which disappeared below.

Captain Marianna brought him below to see the stock on hand, and it seemed to fill the bill, but as he was leaving our big motor attracted his attention. Becker was not the debonaire Lothario he affected to be when in New Orleans. Now sadly unkempt, it seemed to me that his great midriff exuded grease, but it might have been sweat.

He was greatly interested in learning how the big motor, originally intended for an air-plane, not only propelled a boat and ran a sawmill, but yanked in the logs, and hauled in our rigging.

He finally came over to where I stood trying my best to look bored and tired.

"Do you ever have any trouble with it?" he asked, jerkily pointing a pudgy thumb toward the motor.

"No-o-o—but of course it's got to be watched."

"I've got one over there running an ice machine, but I don't know whether its the nigger I've got running it, or whether it's overloaded, or no good, but it makes lots of trouble." I could see he wished to get some free technical instruction.

"It's likely your man doesn't know all about it," I led him on.

Our talk ended in my promise to go ashore that night and take a look at it.

Yes, he wanted lumber and the captain's price seemed satisfactory. In addition he wanted some lumber sawed half an inch thick for crating—and more—he would like to have all the sawdust we could save for him. He needed it in some insulating work on a cooler room—so he said.

That night we were to come alongside his wharf and he would have his negroes unload during the night what lumber we had so we would lose no time next morning.

"Oh, yes, I've got lots of niggers to do it," he explained when leaving.

When Hiram heard of the turn things had taken he could hardly contain himself. He acted like a man who had been in a dungeon for months and suddenly caught a glimmer of light. As for myself, I saw only that we were nearing the end of a very unpleasant bit of investigation.

"Be careful, Hiram," I cautioned, "the least bad move will spoil it. This man has a low cunning—hypnotize yourself into thinking it is not of much importance and you have a year to do it. A show of haste will be fatal."

Hiram was quick to see the point and began to grin. I knew he was about ready to jump out of his skin with excitement.

"Do you know," said he, "it is now only a little after two and we have sawed more logs and made more good lumber than we did all day yesterday!" Evidently he was trying to control himself. "The sawyer tells me he must have nice clear logs to make half-inch lumber on Becker's order. I guess I'll spend the afternoon picking them out."

It took longer than we thought to work our way out of the bayou and up to Becker's floating wharf. As soon as we were tied up he came down with a lot of negroes, who began at once to unload the lumber, carrying it piece by piece back near his building operations. Captain Marianna checked it as it left.

Now on the windward side of the plant it was possible to eat. It was a long rambling building, painted the color of a freight car, occasionally rising to two stories; on one end were the posts driven in the ground for a considerable addition.

After supper we sat smoking, well up on the bank. It soon became evident that Becker did not intend to lose a chance to get expert advice on his gas-engine troubles. He waddled over to us with some real Havanas and with little tact reminded me of my promise.

Though the sun was low, Becker was still in his working togs, bareheaded and stripped to an undershirt. In this array he was a sight to behold, with his sagging jowls, from which great billows of fat formed rolls about his neck.

"This boy here is my assistant, Mr. Becker—he has found engine trouble even when I couldn't," I said, pointing toward Hiram, as we got up to go with him.

How vitally interested Hiram was in this move would be hard to estimate. Much more experienced, I could only contain myself and be natural by refusing to think of the tremendous importance of our acting now, and, without coaching, I think Hiram did the same thing. The slightest false move would render worse than useless planning that had consumed much time and large expenditure.

Hiram walked beside Becker as nonchalantly as though strolling along Broadway, while I followed slightly in the rear. Hiram's now wonderfully developed physique seemed ready for action, ready to break loose with overpowering ferocity. I watched him furtively out of the corner of an eye to make sure he did not precipitate an affair that would "spill the beans."

Becker led us around the outside of the buildings—I was sure there was a short cut through them—to a lean-to shed containing the troublesome engine now laboring with its burden as a locomotive starting to move an overload.

"Ben, the engine is overcrowded," said Hiram, as we stood by it, addressing himself to me just loud enough for Becker to hear. Becker stood slightly apart from me as though he had turned a patient over to us for the time being. I was glad his big black engineer was not there. My policy was never to kill, but my duty was to get what I went after.

We spent ten minutes examining the details of the engine, narrowly watched by Becker. Hiram's conduct was wonderful. He acted as though there was nothing under Heaven or on earth that interested him so much as discovering how we could help cure the sick motor. We asked to see the load on the driving belt that disappeared from the driving pulley through a board partition.

Becker, fairly assured, took us inside into a dark space to a ten-ton ice machine, developing about half its capacity because of slow speed.

Glancing about it for a moment, we returned to the engine room and went outside as though about to return to the dock, considering it a hopeless case. Becker followed us, greatly concerned.

"Mr. Becker, it is a plain case of overload; you must lighten the work of your ice machine. You are attempting to make the motor do too much. The engine might be helped a little by readjusting, but that would not be enough," I said, with a sort of hesitating finality, as we both edged away in the direction we had come.

Becker followed and came close up beside us.

"How can I do that?—you see I am so far away up here I can get no one to do such things," he pleaded.

"The only way is to reduce the circulating distance of the ammonia mixture, and then what you have left will cool more space than it does now," I said, actually feeling sure that was the case.

"How can I do that?" he urged, noticing quickly our inclination to leave.

"That might be very easy or it might be quite a job. We could not tell without examining your piping system," I replied as one who had done a big day's work and was thinking more of sleep than of his troubles, particularly since he had not offered us anything to remedy. Becker had enough sense to see this.

He screwed up his face in a way that brought prodigious wrinkles upon his forehead. Then followed an attempt to be patronizingly generous.

"Boys, I'll tell you what I'll do. I know you've been working all day and are tired, but if you will take time enough to look the whole system over and help it some, I will give you five dollars apiece—I must do something or I will have a lot of stuff spoiled—in fact, I have had some spoil already," he ended half to himself.

Hiram glanced at me quickly, and Becker thought that this swift movement to take down his pipe was caused by the lure of his cash offer.