The Riverman

The time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river above a long pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flat lower than it, stood a two-story mill struct...

At this moment the cook stepped into view, and, making a trumpet of his two hands, sent across the water a long, weird, and not unmusical cry. The men at once began slowly to dr...

“See here, you old mossback,” said Orde, thrusting his bulky form to the fore, “you sue just as soon as you want to. You can't get at it any too quick to suit us. But just now y...

The packing began before the men had finished breakfast. Shortly after daylight the wanigan, pushed strongly from shore by the pike-poles, was drifting toward the chute. When th...

The proprietors of these places were a bold and unscrupulous lot. In their everyday business they had to deal with the most dangerous rough-and-tumble fighters this country has...

“Who would do it?” countered Orde, leaning back more easily in the interest of this new discussion. “If Daly did it, for instance, then all the rest of the drivers would get the...

“Well,” said he, “I've made up my mind to-day to go in with you. It may not work out, but it's a good chance, and I want to get in something that looks like money. I don't know...

Sunday afternoon, Orde, leaving Newmark to devices of his own, walked slowly up the main street, turned to the right down one of the shaded side residence streets that ended fin...

“You'll get right at the construction. Get the booms built and improve the river where it needs it. Begin to get your crew--I'm not going to tell you how; you know better than I...

“Haven't an idea,” replied Orde. “We may have to do it again next summer, but I don't think it. There's nothing but the smooth of the water to wear those logs until they begin t...

Mrs. Bishop rattled her cup and saucer with an uncontrollably nervous jerk of her slender body. For some moments she had awaited a chance to get the general's attention. “Spare...

Orde did not wait for Murphy, however. Like a tiger he sprang forward, hitting out fiercely, first with one hand then with the other. Murphy gave ground, blocked, ducked, exerte...

So she pleaded with him, bringing forward all the unanswerable arguments built by the long average experience of the world--arguments which Orde could not refute, but whose fals...

They ended by renting the little house, and Carroll took charge of it delightedly. What difficulties she overcame, and what laughable and cryable mistakes she made only those wh...

“You don't mean to tell me,” countered Orde, glancing down at the other's rubber-shod feet, “that this crew has been sent up here just to break out those measly little rollways?”

“Jim,” said he, “I'll be down to see you through the sluiceways at Redding, of course. But now that you have a good, still stretch of river, I want you to have the boys let up o...

Grandma Orde brought the newcomer in for Orde's inspection. He looked gravely down on the puckered, discoloured bit of humanity with some feeling of disappointment, and perhaps...

“It was. You take your map and see how much area has been cut already, and how much remains. That'll open your eyes. And remember all that has been done by crude methods for a r...

From the moment Orde completed the secret purchase of the California timber lands from Trace, he became an unwitting participant in one of the strangest duels known to business...

There they had difficulty in getting close enough to see; but Bradford, preceding the two women, succeeded by patience and diplomacy in forcing a way. The SPRITE was lying close...

“It's a good chance, all right,” admitted Orde; “but--why--that is, I thought perhaps we'd job our own freighting for awhile--it never occurred to me we'd build any more vessels...

“Get a cable to the winch,” Orde shouted at these as soon as they were within hearing. “And get Marsh up here with the SPRITE. We've got to get afloat.”

“Now if you have to,” he told North, who had charge, “let go all holds, and the line will probably swing you around out of danger. We on the tug will get out as best we can.”

“No; but he will. Emotional old German fool. Rushed right in when he heard his daughter was sick. Couldn't keep him out. And he's been with her or near her ever since.”

A telephone to Carroll apprised him that all was well with her. A few moments later the call sounded, and Orde took a message that caused him to look grave and to whistle gently...