For all he knew
she and Bobby might have been among the spectators on the bank; he
had hardly once left the river. It did not seem to him strange that
Carroll should not have been there to welcome him after the struggle
was over. Rarely did she get to the booms in ordinary
circumstances. This episode of the big jam was, after all, nothing
but part of the day's work to Orde; a crisis, exaggerated it is
true, but like many other crises a man must meet and cope with on
the river. There was no reason why Carroll should drive the twelve
miles between Monrovia and the booms, unless curiosity should take
her.
As the team left the marsh road for the county turnpike past the
mills and lumberyards, Orde shook himself fully awake. He began to
review the situation. As Newmark had accurately foreseen, he came
almost immediately to a realisation that the firm would not be able
to meet the notes given to Heinzman. Orde had depended on the
profits from the season's drive to enable him to make up the
necessary amount. Those profits would be greatly diminished, if not
wiped out entirely, by the expenses, both regular and irregular,
incurred in holding the jam; by the damage suits surely to be
brought by the owners of the piles, trees, pile-drivers and other
supplies and materials requisitioned in the heat of the campaign;
and by the extra labour necessary to break out the jam and to sort
the logs according to their various destinations.
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