Willy Horse was started that night for the nearest fire warden's station, there to have the warden telephone for a doctor, and also for the sheriff of the county, as it was thought best to hold Tatem as a material witness. The doctor and sheriff arrived late next day. Peg's injuries were found to be quite serious, and it was a full week later before he could be moved to the county jail where he was a prisoner under treatment for two more weeks.
Hippy accompanied Peg, and while at the county seat swore out warrants for Dusenbery and Chet Ainsworth. At the December term of court both men were found guilty and sentenced to serve terms in prison. Peg Tatem, according to agreement with the complainants, was released and advised to seek other fields, which he did.
In the meantime a new dam had been built by Tom and Hippy, and a sawmill established twenty-five miles further down the river. The sounds of the "swampers'" axes and the "saw-gangs" were now heard in the forest from daylight until dark, where huge logs were being felled, trimmed, skidded and rolled down into the new dam, to be "boomed," and released after every thaw in early spring, and sent on their way to the mill.
The Overland girls still lingered. After some discussion they had decided to remain in the woods until after Christmas. By Christmas time the ground and the trees were white with snow, and Tom closed his "cruising" for the season. Willy Horse was absent much of the time, trapping for himself and hunting game for the table of the lumberjacks. The girls were now living in a real log cabin which the jacks, hearing them express a wish that they might have one, had built. Logs blazed in the fireplace, and there the Overland girls, after long hikes in the forest, and occasional rides on their ponies, spent many happy hours.
At Nora's suggestion, an elaborate Christmas celebration, including a Christmas tree, was planned by the girls for the jacks and themselves. Tom, obliged to go to St. Paul on business, more than a week's journey in itself, was commissioned to purchase the supplies and Christmas gifts for the celebration, and returned in a sleigh from Bisbee's Corners, reaching the Overland camp by way of a new trail that his men had cut. He was a regular Santa Claus, except that he rode "behind mules instead of reindeers," as Emma Dean expressed it. Then began the real preparations for Christmas, with many conferences in the log cabin.
Two Christmas dinners were to be laid Christmas evening, one in the new modern bunk-house that had been recently erected, where the old original gang of lumberjacks and a few selected newcomers were then living. Many additional men had been taken on during the early part of the winter when the lumbering operations began on a large scale, and efforts were made to instill into the new men the spirit of the Overland outfit, which the old men long since had absorbed.
The great day arrived. The old and faithful jacks were to sit down with the Overlanders to the spread that was in preparation all that day, Joe Shafto, after much grumbling, laying aside her feud against all lumberjacks and helping the regular cook in his work of preparing the dinner. This was supervised by Grace and Elfreda, while their companions attended to laying the tables and decorating the bunk-house with greens brought in by the jacks.
At seven o'clock that evening, the jacks, who had been put out of the new bunk-house without ceremony, were told to enter. They thumped in, and gazed in amazement at the transformation of their home, at the festoons of pine cones and greens, at the gaily colored lanterns, at the red, white, and blue candles on the table, and at the big American flag suspended from the rafters at the lower end of the room.
The girls disposed themselves about the table so that they might sit with their guests. Hippy took the head of the table, with Spike, who was known by no other name, at his right. Grace had never been able to banish the disagreeable impression that she felt on first setting eyes on the big red-haired lumberjack, and that feeling now seemed to take hold of her more strongly than ever as Spike, shoulders slouched forward and eyes lowered, shuffled to the seat assigned to him.
"Sit down!" ordered Hippy, and all hands sat, Tom taking the seat at the lower end of the table.