mill. Snowball came in half an hour ago, covered with mud and scared

to death. Your saddle and rifle were on him, and we thought you’d sure gone up. We were just getting ready to go out to look for you. How are the woods?”

“Smashed up. How’s the camp?”

“No damage to speak of. The still’s all right, by good luck. The roofs of two or three cabins blew off, but the main track of the storm went a little west of us. But, say! isn’t this going to hit Burnam pretty hard?”

“Afraid so, Tom,” said Joe seriously. He did not want to discuss the matter; he felt too sore and uneasy. He avoided Burnam, who was hurrying about with Wilson, the camp foreman, to ascertain the damage. He went to look at Snowball, whom one of the negroes had unsaddled and brushed down a little, and then he slipped into his room at Wilson’s house, where all the woods-riders boarded. He went to bed, intensely tired and aching, intending to think it all over; but he was scarcely there when he fell soundly asleep.

It was a little late when he awoke, to find brilliant sunshine at the windows. Morris, who shared his room, had already gone. Joe still felt somewhat stiff and sore, but he dressed and quickly went out.

The sky was as clear as if there had never been a storm, and the air was full of sparkle and lightness. The hard sand of the camp square was dry and firm already; the surrounding pines were a fresh-washed, vivid green. There were not many signs of the tempest visible here—only an unroofed cabin or two, a pine that had fallen right into the camp area, and the brook beside the road that flowed muddy and bank-full.

The routine of the camp was disorganized that morning. Negro women and children swarmed about the cabins, calling to one another; the chippers from the wrecked area loafed in the sun, smoking cigarettes, waiting for orders. Joe found Tom Morris near the still, talking with the foreman.

“I was waiting for you, Joe,” said the rider. “Feel all right this morning? Burnam was up at daylight and rode off to look at the woods. He left word for you and me to go over your tract and report. Had your breakfast? Well, go get it quick.”

Joe hurried over the meal, had Snowball brought round, and they rode off, Wilson going with them. The former wagon-trail into the woods was badly choked with fallen timber; they had to make continual detours, and pick their way among the pines. The big turpentine tract lay in a rough rectangle north and south, and the storm, passing right down the middle, had raked it from end to end. The magnificent pines strewed the ground, were broken off at mid-height, stood leaning against one another, ready to fall at the next wind. Some of the gum-cups still clung to the trees; others lay scattered over the ground, spilling their thick contents. They rode through this scene of wreck for a mile or two, and then Wilson stopped his horse.

“I don’t want to see no more, boys,” he announced. “Looks to me like this camp’s plumb ruined. I reckon we’ll all have to hunt another job right soon.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Morris, encouragingly. “It ain’t all as bad as right here. And then, Burnam’s got the river orchard.”

The river orchard was a tract of about five hundred acres lying close to the Alabama River, three miles away. The remainder of the turpentine woods had been merely leased for three years, but this tract belonged to Burnam outright. He had never turpentined it, because the tapping of the trees materially injures them for timber.

“Burnam won’t turpentine the river orchard,” said Wilson. “He’s saving it for timber.”

“Well,” he continued, after a gloomy pause, “I s’pose I’d better go back to camp and get some niggers and gather up these here cups. Better save what we can.”

For two or three hours Joe and Morris rode through the woods, finding it a depressing spectacle. In the direct track of the storm, fortunately not very wide, it looked as if hardly anything was left fit to turpentine. Outside that belt the damage was not so great, but the woods were so choked with fallen trees and debris that it would take weeks of labor, it seemed, to clear them enough to carry on operations.

“I was going off on a holiday to-day,” Joe remarked. “I reckon that’s indefinitely postponed.”

“I don’t see why,” Morris returned. “This is just the time. There won’t be much woods-riding done for a week. The men’ll all be busy clearing up the mess.”

“Well, I’ll see what Burnam thinks. I want to talk to him anyway,” said Joe. “I’ve got to find out if this camp is busted or not.”

Burnam had come in by the time the riders got back, and Joe found him in his little office in the rear of the commissary-store, bending over a heap of papers and looking worried. The turpentine operator was past middle age, tall, spare, and wiry, burned brown by the Alabama sun. He had spent all his life among the pines, working in turpentine and rosin and lumber; he had a reputation for success and luck and for generosity and for a violent and uncontrollable temper. He had been known to draw a gun on one of his men, threaten him with death, discharge him and be ready to forget it all the next day. He was dressed as he had come in from riding, in flannel shirt and khaki leggings; his soft black hat was pushed on the back of his head, and he met Joe’s entrance with a glance of irritation. He was in no smooth temper, but neither was Joe.

“Morris and I have looked over most of the tract, Mr. Burnam,” Joe began. “Nearly half the timber looks to be down, or all tangled up. We can save a lot of gum by gathering up the cups right away, but everything is in bad shape.”

Burnam said nothing, but frowned as if he knew this already.

“Is the camp going to go on, or shut down?” Joe ventured.

“That’s my business!” Burnam snapped.

“Mine, too. You’re forgetting that all my money is tied up in this outfit. It was supposed to be a good investment.”

“Well, ain’t you getting ten per cent. on it?” Burnam demanded.

“Yes—so far. But will I ever get the principal back?”

Burnam gave him a furious glance. For a moment Joe expected one of the turpentine man’s famous explosions of rage; but then Burnam leaned back in his seat, took off his hat and put it on the table, and grinned.

“I don’t blame you much for being worried, Joe,” he said. “You can bet that I’m worried myself. But I’ll pull through. I’m going to turpentine the river orchard.”

“All right,” said Joe, surprised and relieved. “Do you want me to ride it?”

“Sure. I hadn’t intended to turpentine that tract, but now I’ve got to. I was looking over it this morning, and there’s right smart of good pine there.”

“All right,” said Joe. “I’ll do the best I can—I’ll work like any nigger—for myself as well as for you.”

“I reckon you’ll pull us through, then,” returned Burnam, with some dryness. “You were fixing to take a few days off now, I think.”

“I was—but of course I won’t now,” Joe hastened to say. “I wouldn’t leave the camp in this fix.”

“No, that’ll be all right. For the rest of this week the men’ll be doing nothing but clearing up fallen timber. You go and visit with your kin-folks for three days if you like; we can spare you as well as not. I can’t let you have the car to-day, but to-morrow’s boat day, and you can ride down to the landing and take your horse with you on the boat.”

Joe had no hesitation about accepting this offer. He had been looking forward to seeing his Canadian cousins, and now he particularly wanted to talk to Uncle Louis about the financial prospect. He knew that Burnam would not let him go unless he could really be well spared, and he thanked the turpentine operator and went out, feeling as if he had been treated with more generosity than he deserved.

The rest of that day he spent with Morris and Wilson, setting the negroes at clearing up the woods, collecting the scattered gum-cups, opening trails for the wagons again, and planning to get what turpentine could still be obtained from the wrecked “orchard.”

While he was still at breakfast the next morning he heard the deep roar of the river-steamer’s whistle resounding tremendously through the woods. There was no hurry; she was still far away, for her great siren would carry fifteen miles in calm weather; but as soon as he could finish eating he jumped on Snowball and rode at a gallop from the camp and down the road to the landing.

It was three miles to the landing. The road, of yellow sand and clay, had already dried hard since the rain, and it ran between banks of brilliantly-colored clay, vermilion and greenish and white like striped marble. A rivulet of clear water ran on each side of the road, and on each side rose the vivid green of the pines. As he approached the end he passed through a belt of dense swamp, a tangle of creepers and thorns and titi-shrubs and bay-trees, and then he came in sight of the Alabama River.

There was no wharf, merely a freight warehouse and a cotton-shed at the landing, and three or four men were already there looking out for the boat. The river was a quarter of a mile wide here, running full and strong after the heavy rain, wallowing around its great curves, muddy and opalescent. Down to the water’s edge the shores were densely wooded with sycamore and willow and cypress, overrun with yellow jessamine and hung with gray Spanish moss, and, except for the freight-shed, the scene must have been exactly as it had been when the first Spanish explorers came up from the Gulf to look for the fabled Indian treasure-cities.

The steamboat’s whistle roared again, perhaps four or five miles away. As Joe rode up to the landing he saw a black object drifting slowly down the river. It was a houseboat—a flatboat with a rough cabin that covered the whole deck, except for a small deck-space at each end. It was painted or tarred a rusty black; it looked heavy in the water, and it moved sluggishly. A big steering-sweep trailed idly astern, and no one showed his face aboard her.

Joe had seen many such houseboats before. There is a migratory population using them upon all the large rivers of the South; but the somber appearance of this one caught his attention. It looked vaguely sinister to him.