“He’s in town,” said Tally; “but they don’t know where.”

“Whither away?” asked Bob.

“Across the river.”

They walked together down a side street to a long wooden bridge.  This rested on wooden piers shaped upstream like the prow of a ram in order to withstand the battering of the logs.  It was a very long bridge.  Beneath it the swift current of the river slipped smoothly.  The breadth of the stream was divided into many channels and pockets by means of brown poles.  Some of these were partially filled with logs.  A clear channel had been preserved up the middle.  Men armed with long pike-poles were moving here and there over the booms and the logs themselves, pushing, pulling, shoving a big log into this pocket, another into that, gradually segregating the different brands belonging to the different owners of the mills below.  From the quite considerable height of the bridge all this lay spread out mapwise up and down the perspective of the stream.  The smooth, oily current of the river, leaden-hued and cold in the light of the early spring, hurried by on its way to the lake, swiftly, yet without the turmoil and fuss of lesser power.  Downstream, as far as Bob could see, were the huge mills’ with their flanking lumber yards, the masts of their lading ships, their black sawdust-burners, and above all the pure-white, triumphant banners of steam that shot straight up against the gray of the sky.

Tally followed the direction of his gaze.

“Modern work,” he commented.  “Band saws.  No circulars there.  Two hundred thousand a day”; with which cryptic utterance he resumed his walk.

The opposite side of the river proved to be a smaller edition of the other.  Into the first saloon Tally pushed.

It resembled the others, except that no card game was in progress.  The barkeeper, his feet elevated, read a pink paper behind the bar.  A figure slept at the round table, its head in its arms.  Tally walked over to shake this man by the shoulder.

In a moment the sleeper raised his head.  Bob saw a little, middle-aged man, not over five feet six in height, slenderly built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders.  His head was an almost exact inverted pyramid, the base formed by a mop of red-brown hair, and the apex represented by a very pointed chin.  Two level, oblong patches of hair made eyebrows.  His face was white and nervous.  A strong, hooked nose separated a pair of red-brown eyes, small and twinkling, like a chipmunk’s.  Just now they were bloodshot and vague.

“Hullo, Dicky Darrell,” said Tally.

The man struggled to his feet, knocking over the chair, and laid both hands effusively on Tally’s shoulders.

“Jim!” he cried thickly.  “Good ole Jim!  Glad to see you!  Hav’ drink!”

Tally nodded, and, to Bob’s surprise, took his place at the bar.

“Hav’ ’nother!” cried Darrell.  “God!  I’m glad to see you!  Nobody in town.”