In the long dining room the rivermen consumed a belated dinner. They had no comments to make. It was over.
The two on the veranda smoked. To the right, at the end of the sawdust street, the mill sang its varying and lulling keys. The odor of fresh-sawed pine perfumed the air. Not a hundred yards away the river slipped silently to the distant blue Superior, escaping between the slanting stone-filled cribs which held back the logs. Down the south and west the huge thunderheads gathered and flashed and grumbled, as they had done every afternoon for days previous.
“Queer thing,” commented Hamilton finally, “these cold streaks in the air. They are just as distinct as though they had partitions around them.”
“Queer climate anyway,” agreed Carpenter.
Excepting always for the mill, the little settlement appeared asleep. The main booms were quite deserted. Not a single figure, armed with its picturesque pike-pole, loomed athwart the distance. After awhile Hamilton noticed something.
“Look here, Carpenter,” said he, “what's happening out there? Have some of your confounded logs SUNK, or what? There don't seem to be near so many of them somehow.”
“No, it isn't that,” proffered Carpenter after a moment's scrutiny, “there are just as many logs, but they are getting separated a little so you can see the open water between them.”
“Guess you're right. Say, look here, I believe that the river is rising!”
“Nonsense, we haven't had any rain.”
“She's rising just the same. I'll tell you how I know; you see that spile over there near the left-hand crib? Well, I sat on the boom this morning watching the crew, and I whittled the spile with my knife—you can see the marks from here. I cut the thing about two feet above the water. Look at it now.”