“You mean to say you really own the timber yourself, Father?” Tom cried, almost stupefied. For just a moment he had the idea that his father’s mind had become slightly deranged; but Mr. Jackson’s practical and competent manner, growing more vigorous every minute, put that idea to flight.  
“Of course I do. Armstrong knows all about it. What a pity you didn’t tell him when you were in town! But it can’t be helped. We’re not too late—I hope. What has that Harrison done toward lifting the walnut?”
 
“Not very much, when I left, three days ago. I think he’d just got to work. They had dug out quite a number of the logs.”
 
“How many men did he have? How many teams? You don’t know? You should have found out, Tom. Anyhow, it’ll be a matter of weeks to get all that lumber up and raft or haul it away. But we don’t want him to have any claim for salvage against us. We must get on the spot the first minute we can. We’ll start for Coboconk at once, my boy.”
 
“Let me go alone, Father. Give me authority to act for you. You’re not strong enough to go into the woods.”
 
“I guess I’m plenty strong enough when there’s something really to be done,” laughed the old lumberman. “It was doing nothing that was killing me—sitting still and seeing nothing but ruin. No, this is just the medicine I want.”
 
Tom still felt dubious, but Mr. Jackson insisted on action.
 
“I don’t see why we can’t start to-morrow,” he said. “We can get our outfit and men at Ormond. I guess that’s the nearest railway point to the lake.”
 
“I thought Oakley was the nearest.”
 
“Oakley’s down the river—thirty-five miles or so, isn’t it? And we couldn’t take teams up the river in canoes. Ormond is straight west from the Coboconk lakes, only twenty miles, and there’s a logging road, or used to be. That’s the way you go to Phil’s ranch. You can’t teach me much about that district, Tom. Just wait till we get out there.”
 
Tom’s mother was astounded, half an hour later, to find Mr. Jackson walking briskly up and down the balcony arm in arm with his son, talking with enthusiasm about business matters. Mr. Jackson laughed at her alarm; he declared he felt a hundred per cent. better already, and, in fact, he presently ate a better lunch than he had eaten for a long time. Afterward, however, he consented to take his prescribed nap, and while he was sleeping Tom detailed the new enterprise to his mother. On her suggestion Tom went to consult the doctor who was attending his father. For a dangerously sick man to start suddenly upon the trail did seem a risky experiment.
 
“This may be just the thing he needs,” said the physician, after listening to Tom’s tale. “Inaction and worry were the hardest things on him. He hasn’t any real disease at all. Make him travel as comfortably as possible, and try to keep him from overexerting himself, and you may bring him back cured.”
 
Tom did not tell his father about this visit to the doctor, but he was able to throw himself into the preparations with a much better conscience. They did not, however, leave for a day or two. It was not so very far to the Coboconk district, but it was a very circuitous journey by rail. They had to go half-way to Toronto and then back upon a branch line to reach Ormond, and it was late in the afternoon when they at last got off at that backwoods village. The timber treasure lay only twenty-two miles to the east, but it was twenty-two miles of dense second-growth forest penetrated only by the almost disused logging roads.
 
Ormond was a village of two-score houses and a store or two, larger than Oakley but not now so flourishing. Once this district had been the seat of a thriving lumber industry; Mr. Jackson had worked over it before setting up in Toronto; but most of the pine had been long ago cut, and dull times had come upon Ormond. But Tom was astonished to find his father well known and remembered there still. The proprietor of the hotel, elderly, bearded, and rough, stared at his guests for a moment, and then uttered a shout of recognition.
 
“Jumping crickets! If it ain’t Matt Jackson!”
 
Mr. Jackson shook the hotel man’s hand heartily.
 
“I didn’t know you were up here yet, Andrews,” he said. “I used to know Mr. Andrews well, years ago, when I was lumbering around Coboconk,” he said to Tom. “I expect there may be some of my old lumber-jacks here still. If there are they’re just what we need now. I’ve got a little timber proposition on,” he added to the proprietor.
 
“Sure, I’ll find ye some of the boys,” exclaimed Andrews. “They’ll be powerful glad to work for ye again, too—the more as jobs is scarce around Ormond these days.”
 
Tom went up to his room to wash, pleased immensely at the reception they had received. Coming down again, he found his father in animated conversation with a group of old residents, and looking more alive and interested than he had seen him for years. Mr. Jackson was tired, indeed, and went early to bed that night; but he was far from exhausted by the journey, and was up the next morning before his son.
 
Tom found his father down-stairs, consulting with a big, roughly dressed fellow, bull-necked and huge-chested. His hair was grizzling a little, but his strength appeared noway abated with years, and he treated the lumber merchant with marked deference.
 
“This is Joe Lynch—Big Joe, they used to call him, and likely do yet,” said Mr. Jackson. “He’s one of the best bushmen in the north, and it isn’t the first time he’s worked for me. He’ll be our foreman now, and he thinks he can pick up six or eight men for us right away. We want to get started at once. Teams and supplies can come on later. Remember, Joe,” he added, “I want men who wouldn’t be afraid of a little trouble. Not roughs, you know, but fellows who can fight if they need to. Maybe there’ll be a row where we’re going.”
 
“Trust me for thot, sorr,” responded Lynch, with a wink. “They’ll like nothing better. I’ll get ye a bunch that’ll fight their weight in wildcats, any day.”
 
At that moment breakfast was called, and Tom and his father went into the dining-room.
 
“I’ve heard news of your man Harrison,” said Mr. Jackson. “He was here ten days ago, hiring men and getting supplies. Nobody knew what he wanted them for. He’s got five men and one team of horses, and he can’t have made any great progress at getting out the walnut yet. But I think we’d better hurry ahead as soon as we can. It’ll take some time to get our outfit together here, but I suppose I can leave that to Lynch—though I’d rather see after it myself. Something’s sure to be overlooked.”
 
“Better let me scout ahead, Father!” Tom urged. “We can’t tell what Harrison may be doing. He might raft down the timber in small quantities as fast as he got it out, and sell it at Oakley.”
 
“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Jackson, struck by this danger. “I suppose you could stop anything like that, if you took a man or two with you. I’d give you written authority.”
 
“But Uncle Phil’s ranch must be on the way,” cried Tom, struck with a fresh idea. “He’d go over with me, or Cousin Ed—maybe somebody else.”
 
This proposition was so evidently sound that Tom set out soon after breakfast. Plenty of people knew where Phil Jackson’s farm lay, and Tom regretted that he had not originally come to Ormond instead of Oakley. But then he would probably never have reached Coboconk and the lost raft.
 
He carried only his rifle and a package of cold lunch, expecting to reach the farm some time that afternoon. It was supposed to be only fifteen miles, and there was a road,—not much used, indeed, but still a road,—which it would be easy to follow. Mr. Jackson was to collect his men and their outfit and come on the next day, to rejoin Tom where the trail struck the river, below Little Coboconk.
 
The old road proved rough traveling. Apparently it had not been used at all for a long time, and it was grown up thickly with small spruces and raspberry thickets—so jungly, in fact, that Tom often found it easier to take to the woods.
 
It was not going to be easy traveling for the wagons, he thought; and wondered if Harrison’s men had come in this way. Still, he plodded on and ate his lunch about noon, and within the next few miles he began to look for traces of settlement. Nothing appeared, however, and he began to travel slowly, looking about him more carefully for trails. An uneasy qualm began to assail him, but he kept on until, as the sun came down close to the tree-tops, he became assured that he had somehow missed the way.
 
He turned back at once on his own trail. Once he came to what seemed a cow track crossing the path, but it presently became untraceable. The sun was going down, and he stopped. By this time he was grown hardened to being lost in the woods; but he was hungry, and the prospect of a supperless night was not attractive.
 
It was warm, however, and he built a fire and made himself as comfortable as possible. Despite an empty stomach, he managed to sleep; and in the earliest morning, rested but famished, he started back on the road over which he had come. But it was only after an hour or so that he came upon an obscure-looking cross trail that he had previously overlooked. He might have passed it again, had not his attention been caught by something like the far-away bellow of a cow.
 
He followed up the trail toward the sound, and within a quarter of a mile he struck a wide, stumpy, pasture clearing. Beyond another belt of trees he emerged upon a plowed field, with a view of a large log house and barns, which he knew must be the elusive homestead of Uncle Phil.
 
So it proved. Tom hurried up to the house and got an astonished but enthusiastic welcome. He had come at an unfortunate moment, however. Uncle Phil and Cousin Ed had started within the last hour for the store and post-office, nine miles away on a bush road that Tom had not suspected, and were not likely to be back before evening.
 
No one was at home but his aunt and the younger children. Tom ate a huge breakfast, told his story, and gave news of Dave on the gold trail, and rested for an hour or so. But he was uneasily impatient to reach the lakes. He was afraid to wait for his uncle’s return, and he got an early dinner, took a packet of lunch, and set out again shortly after midday.
 
He had his directions more accurately laid now; but it was rough travel through the woods, and he went more slowly than he had hoped. The sun was almost setting when he emerged at last on the shore of the river. He was still a mile or two below Little Coboconk, but he hastened up the stream and saw the long, placid expanse of the lake.
 
Nothing moved on its waters. From away up by the narrows he thought he saw a curl of smoke in the evening air. The emptiness relieved him; somehow he had almost expected to see the raft afloat and steering down the lake. But he knew that it was almost impossible for Harrison to have salvaged any great quantity of the timber so soon.
 
Peering ahead, he walked up the stony margin of the lake in the twilight. He had a strange, uneasy feeling that eyes were upon him, as he had had during the journey to Roswick; but this time he was certain that no one could have followed him through the woods. More than once, all the same, he turned quickly to look, but nothing stirred on the surface of the lake or the darkening shores.
 
Smoke was c............