“What for?” asked one of the Saginaw men as he received his hatchet.
But the riverman who squatted next nudged him with his elbow.
“The less questions you ask Jack, the more answers you'll get. Just do what you're told to on this river and you'll see fun sure.”
Three days later the rear crew ran into the head of the pond above Reed's dam. 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.”
The men took their places. Orde moved here and there, giving his directions.