It dawned upon Stella Benton that these might be Jack Fyfe’s drunken loggers, and she withdrew until the way should be clear, vitally interested because her brother was a logging man, and wondering if these were the human tools he used in his business, if these were the sort of men with whom he associated.  They were a rough lot—­and some were very drunk.  With the manifestations of liquor she had but the most shadowy acquaintance.  But she would have been little less than a fool not to comprehend this.

Then they began filing down the gangway to the boat’s deck.  One slipped, and came near falling into the water, whereat his fellows howled gleefully.  Precariously they negotiated the slanting passage.  All but one:  he sat him down at the slip-head on his bundle and began a quavering chant.  The teamster imperturbably finished his unloading, two men meanwhile piling the goods aboard.

The wagon backed out, and the way was clear, save for the logger sitting on his blankets, wailing his lugubrious song.  From below his fellows urged him to come along.  A bell clanged in the pilot house.  The exhaust of a gas engine began to sputter through the boat’s side.  From her after deck a man hailed the logger sharply, and when his call was unheeded, he ran lightly up the slip.  A short, squarely-built man he was, light on his feet as a dancing master.

He spoke now with authority, impatiently.

“Hurry aboard, Mike; we’re waiting.”

The logger rose, waved his hand airily, and turned as if to retreat down the wharf.  The other caught him by the arm and spun him face to the slip.

“Come on, Slater,” he said evenly.  “I have no time to fool around.”

The logger drew back his fist.  He was a fairly big man.  But if he had in mind to deal a blow, it failed, for the other ducked and caught him with both arms around the middle.  He lifted the logger clear of the wharf, hoisted him to the level of his breast, and heaved him down the slip as one would throw a sack of bran.

The man’s body bounced on the incline, rolled, slid, tumbled, till at length he brought up against the boat’s guard, and all that saved him a ducking was the prompt extension of several stout arms, which clutched and hauled him to the flush after deck.  He sat on his haunches, blinking.  Then he laughed.  So did the man at the top of the slip and the lumberjacks clustered on the boat.  Homeric laughter, as at some surpassing jest.  But the roar of him who had taken that inglorious descent rose loudest of all, an explosive, “Har—­har—­har!”

He clambered unsteadily to his feet, his mouth expanded in an amiable grin.

“Hey, Jack,” he shouted.  “Maybe y’ c’n throw m’ blankets down too, while y’r at it.”

The man at the slip-head caught up the roll, poised it high, and cast it from him with a quick twist of his body.  The woolen missile flew like a well-put shot and caught its owner fair in the breast, tumbling him backwards on the deck—­and the Homeric laughter rose in double strength.  Then the boat began to swing, and the man ran down and leaped the widening space as she drew away from her mooring.