He was throwing the fibers of his life into the engine of toil, not because of moral duty, but because of moral pride.He meant to succeed in order to prove to himself that he had not been wrong.
The pain of the arrow-wound always aroused him from his doze with a start.He grimly laughed the thought out of court.To his waking moments his religion was sincere, was real.But deep down in his sub-consciousness, below his recognition, the other influence was growing like a weed.Perhaps the vision, not the waking, had been right.Perhaps that far-off beautiful dream of a girl which Thorpe's idealism had constructed from; the reactionary necessities of Thorpe's harsh life had been more real than his forest temples of his ruthless god! Perhaps there were greater things than to succeed, greater things than success.Perhaps, after all, the Power that put us here demands more that we cleave one to the other in loving-kindness than that we learn to blow the penny whistles it has tossed us.And then the keen, poignant memory of the dream girl stole into the young man's mind, and in agony was immediately thrust forth.He would not think of her.He had given her up.He had cast the die.For success he had bartered her, in the noblest, the loftiest spirit of devotion.He refused to believe that devotion fanatical; he refused to believe that he had been wrong.In the still darkness of the night he would rise and steal to the edge of the dully roaring stream.There, his eyes blinded and his throat choked with a longing more manly than tears, he would reach out and smooth the round rough coats of the great logs.
"We'll do it!" he whispered to them--and to himself."We'll do it!
We can't be wrong.God would not have let us!"Chapter LII
Wallace Carpenter's search expedition had proved a failure, as Thorpe had foreseen, but at the end of the week, when the water began to recede, the little beagles ran upon a mass of flesh and bones.The man was unrecognizable, either as an individual or as a human being.The remains were wrapped in canvas and sent for interment in the cemetery at Marquette.Three of the others were never found.The last did not come to light until after the drive had quite finished.
Down at the booms the jam crew received the drive as fast as it came down.From one crib to another across the broad extent of the river's mouth, heavy booms were chained end to end effectually to close the exit to Lake Superior.Against these the logs caromed softly in the slackened current, and stopped.The cribs were very heavy with slanting, instead of square, tops, in order that the pressure might be downwards instead of sidewise.This guaranteed their permanency.In a short time the surface of the lagoon was covered by a brown carpet of logs running in strange patterns like windrows of fallen grain.Finally, across the straight middle distance of the river, appeared little agitated specks leaping back and forth.Thus the rear came in sight and the drive was all but over.
Up till now the weather had been clear but oppressively hot for this time of year.The heat had come suddenly and maintained itself well.It had searched out with fierce directness all the patches of snow lying under the thick firs and balsams of the swamp edge, it had shaken loose the anchor ice of the marsh bottoms, and so had materially aided the success of the drive by increase of water.
The men had worked for the most part in undershirts.They were as much in the water as out of it, for the icy bath had become almost grateful.Hamilton, the journalist, who had attached himself definitely to the drive, distributed bunches of papers, in which the men read that the unseasonable condition prevailed all over the country.
At length, however, it gave signs of breaking.The sky, which had been of a steel blue, harbored great piled thunder-heads.
Occasionally athwart the heat shot a streak of cold air.Towards evening the thunder-heads shifted and finally dissipated, to be sure, but the portent was there.
Hamilton's papers began to tell of disturbances in the South and West.A washout in Arkansas derailed a train; a cloud-burst in Texas wiped out a camp; the cities along the Ohio River were enjoying their annual flood with the usual concomitants of floating houses and boats in the streets.The men wished they had some of that water here.
So finally the drive approached its end and all concerned began in anticipation to taste the weariness that awaited them.They had hurried their powers.The few remaining tasks still confronting them, all at once seemed more formidable than what they had accomplished.They could not contemplate further exertion.The work for the first time became dogged, distasteful.Even Thorpe was infected.He, too, wanted more than anything else to drop on the bed in Mrs.Hathaway's boarding house, there to sponge from his mind all colors but the dead gray of rest.There remained but a few things to do.A mile of sacking would carry the drive beyond the influence of freshet water.After that there would be no hurry.
He looked around at the hard, fatigue-worn faces of the men about him, and in the obsession of his wearied mood he suddenly felt a great rush of affection for these comrades who had so unreservedly spent themselves for his affair.Their features showed exhaustion, it is true, but their eyes gleamed still with the steady half-humorous purpose of the pioneer.When they caught his glance they grinned good-humoredly.
All at once Thorpe turned and started for the bank.
"That'll do, boys," he said quietly to the nearest group."She's down!"It was noon.The sackers looked up in surprise.Behind them, to their very feet, rushed the soft smooth slope of Hemlock Rapids.
Below them flowed a broad, peaceful river.The drive had passed its last obstruction.To all intents and purposes it was over.
