"Vell, my boy," remarked the German quite frankly to Orde as they
met on the road one day, "looks like I got you dis time, eh?"
Orde laughed, also with entire good-humour.
"If you mean your logs are going down with ours, why I guess you
have. But you paste this in your hat: you're going to keep awful
busy, and it's going to cost you something yet to get 'em down."
To Newmark, on one of his occasional visits to the camps, Orde
detailed the situation.
"It doesn't amount to much," said he, "except that it complicates
matters. We'll make him scratch gravel, if we have to sit up nights
and work overtime to do it. We can't injure him or leave his logs,
but we can annoy him a lot."
The state of affairs was perfectly well known to the men, and the
entire river entered into the spirit of the contest. The drivers
kept a sharp lookout for "H" logs, and whenever possible thrust them
aside into eddies and backwaters. This, of course, merely made work
for the sackers Heinzman had left above the rear. Soon they were in
charge of a very fair little drive of their own. Their lot was not
enviable. Indeed, only the pressure of work prevented some of the
more aggressive of Orde's rear--among whom could be numbered the
Rough Red--from going back and "cleaning out" this impertinent band
of hangers-on.
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