To every one's surprise, Orde called a halt on the work
and announced a holiday.
Now, holidays are unknown on drive. Barely is time allowed for
eating and sleeping. Nevertheless, all that day the men lay about
in complete idleness, smoking, talking, sleeping in the warm sun.
The river, silenced by the closed sluice-gates, slept also. The
pond filled with logs. From above, the current, aided by a fair
wind, was driving down still other logs--the forerunners of the
little drive astern. At sight of these, some of the men grumbled.
"We're losin' what we made," said they. "We left them logs, and
sorted 'em out once already."
Orde sent a couple of axe-men to blaze the newcomers. A little
before sundown he ordered the sluice-gates of the dam opened.
"Night work," said the men to one another. They knew, of course,
that in sluicing logs, the gate must be open a couple of hours
before the sluicing begins in order to fill the river-bed below.
Logs run ahead faster than the water spreads.
Sure enough, after supper Orde suddenly appeared among them, the
well-known devil of mischief dancing in his eyes and broadening his
good-natured face.
"Get organised, boys," said he briskly. "We've got to get this pond
all sluiced before morning, and there's enough of us here to hustle
it right along.
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