That day there was no one in all the parish as pleased as Parson Dan at the great change which had come over the careless and indifferent captain.

CHAPTER XXV

DRIFT-LOGS

The following week was very stormy.  The rain drove up from the south, and the river rose rapidly.  The ice, now greatly weakened, slowly stirred before its final rush to the sea.  Then the moment arrived when it started forward, impelled by the gathering mass up-stream.  All day long it surged onward, and far on into the night, carrying along trees, and stones, ripping and grinding, demolishing a wharf here, or up-rooting a tree there.  No power of man could stop it.  People stood on the shore watching the sight, familiar, and yet always new.  The last sign of winter had now departed, and all knew that in a few hours the first steamer of the season would be on her way up-river.

With the ice, and following it, came the drift-logs.  In a number of cases booms had been broken, and the work of months ruined in an instant.  For a hundred miles or more these logs were scattered along the river, drifting with the tide, caught in coves, and mouths of creeks, or stranded upon the shore.  To collect as many of these as possible was a big task.  Yet it was important, for these logs represented much money, and their entire loss would spell ruin to some lumbermen.

In less than two days after the ice had gone out, a notice was posted at the store.  It told of the offer of ten cents for each drift-log.  There were men who made a regular business of this every spring.  They bought all the logs which had been collected by the inhabitants along the river, took them to the city, where they were sorted out according to private marks, and sold to their respective owners at an excellent profit.

Formerly, Captain Josh had paid no attention to such posted notices.  The work of gathering drift-logs he considered beneath the dignity of an old sea-captain.  “I’m not a scavenger,” he had often told people, when they had asked him why he didn’t collect the logs which always floated near his shore, and into the little cove just below his house.  “If I can’t make a livin’ without doin’ sich work, then I’ll give up.”

But this spring the captain studied the notice most carefully, and he walked back to the Anchorage in a very thoughtful mood.  He was thinking of the scouts.  He was anxious that they should make more money, and here was a fine opportunity.  They had already two hundred dollars in the bank, for the bear and the wreaths had added another fifty to the account.  But the captain was not satisfied.  He longed to have three hundred dollars there, for with that amount there was hardly a possible chance of the Hillcrest troop being beaten in the struggle for the prize.  He disliked the idea of now turning scavenger after he had talked so much against the work.  But he was not thinking of himself, so that made a vast difference.