When Bonnyboy was twenty years old his father gave up, once for
all, his attempt to make a carpenter of him. A number of

saw-mills had been built during the last years along the river
down in the valley, and the old rapids had been broken up into a

succession of mill-dams, one above the other. At one of these
saw-mills Bonnyboy sought work, and was engaged with many others

as a mill hand. His business was to roll the logs on to the
little trucks that ran on rails, and to push them up to the saws,

where they were taken in charge by another set of men, who
fastened and watched them while they were cut up into planks.

Very little art was, indeed, required for this simple task; but
strength was required, and of this Bonnyboy had enough and to

spare. He worked with a will from early morn till dewy eve, and
was happy in the thought that he had at last found something that

he could do. It made the simple-hearted fellow proud to observe
that he was actually gaining his father's regard; or, at all

events, softening the disappointment which, in a vague way, he
knew that his dulness must have caused him. If, occasionally, he

was hurt by a rolling log, he never let any one know it; but even
though his foot was a mass of agony every time he stepped on it,

he would march along as stiffly as a soldier. It was as if he
felt his father's eye upon him long before he saw him.

There was a curious kind of sympathy between them which expressed
itself, on the father's part, in a need to be near his son. But

he feared to avow any such weakness, knowing that Bonnyboy would
interpret it as distrust of his ability to take care of himself,

and a desire to help him if he got into trouble. Grim,
therefore, invented all kinds of transparent pretexts for paying

visits to the saw-mills. And when he saw Bonnyboy, conscious
that his eye was resting upon him, swinging his axe so that the

chips flew about his ears, and the perspiration rained from his
brow, a dim anxiety often took possession of him, though he could

give no reason for it. That big brawny fellow, with the frame of
a man and the brain of a child, with his guileless face and his

guileless heart, strangely moved his compassion. There was
something almost beautiful about him, his father thought; but he

could not have told what it was; nor would he probably have found
any one else that shared his opinion. That frank and genial gaze

of Bonnyboy's, which expressed goodness of heart but nothing
else, seemed to Grim an "open sesame" to all hearts; and that

unawakened something which goes so well with childhood, but not
with adult age, filled him with tenderness and a vague anxiety.

"My poor lad," he would murmur to himself, as he caught sight of
Bonnyboy's big perspiring face, with the yellow tuft of hair

hanging down over his forehead, "clever you are not; but you have
that which the cleverest of us often lack."

V.
There were sixteen saw-mills in all, and the one at which

Bonnyboy was employed was the last of the series. They were
built on little terraces on both banks of the river, and every

four of them were supplied with power from an artificial dam, in
which the water was stored in time of drought, and from which it

escaped in a mill-race when required for use. These four dams
were built of big stones, earthwork, and lumber, faced with

smooth planks, over which a small quantity of water usually
drizzled into the shallow river-bed. Formerly, before the power

was utilized, this slope had been covered with seething and
swirling rapids--a favorite resort of the salmon, which leaped

high in the spring, and were caught in the box-traps that hung on
long beams over the water. Now the salmon had small chance of

shedding their spawn in the cool, bright mountain pools, for they
could not leap the dams, and if by chance one got into the mill-

race, it had a hopeless struggle against a current that would
have carried an elephant off his feet. Bonnyboy, who more than

once had seen the beautiful silvery fish spring right on to the
millwheel, and be flung upon the rocks, had wished that he had

understood the language of the fishes, so that he might tell them
how foolish such proceedings were. But merciful though he was,

he had been much discouraged when, after having put them back
into the river, they had promptlyrepeated the experiment.

There were about twenty-five or thirty men employed at the mill
where Bonnyboy earned his bread in the sweat of his brow, and he

was, on the whole, on good terms with all of them. They did, to
be sure, make fun of him occasionally; but sometimes he failed to

understand it, and at other times he made clumsy but good-humored
attempts to repay their gibes in kind. They took good care,

however, not to rouse his wrath, for the reputation he had
acquired by his treatment of Ola Klemmerud made them afraid to

risk a collision.
This was the situation when the great floods of 188- came, and

introduced a spice of danger into Bonnyboy's monotonous life.
The mill-races were now kept open night and day, and yet the

water burst like a roaring cascade over the tops of dams, and the
river-bed was filled to overflowing with a swiftly-hurrying tawny

torrent, which filled the air with its rush and swash, and sent
hissing showers of spray flying through the tree-tops. Bonnyboy

and a gang of twenty men were working as they had never worked
before in their lives, under the direction of an engineer, who

had been summoned by the mill-owner to strengthen the dams; for
if but one of them burst, the whole tremendousvolume of water

would be precipitated upon the valley, and the village by the
lower falls and every farm within half a mile of the river-banks

would be swept out of existence. Guards were stationed all the
way up the river to intercept any stray lumber that might be

afloat. For if a log jam were added to the terrificstrain of
the flood, there would surely be no salvation possible. Yet in

spite of all precautions, big logs now and then came bumping
against the dams, and shot with wild gyrations and somersaults

down into the brown eddies below.
The engineer, who was standing on the top of a log pile, had

shouted until he was hoarse, and gesticulated with his cane until
his arms were lame, but yet there was a great deal to do before

he could go to bed with an easy conscience. Bonnyboy and his
comrades, who had had by far the harder part of the task, were

ready to drop with fatigue. It was now eight o'clock in the
evening, and they had worked since six in the morning, and had

scarcely had time to swallow their scant rations. Some of them
began to grumble, and the engineer had to coax and threaten them

to induce them to persevere for another hour. The moon was just
rising behind the mountain ridges, and the beautiful valley lay,

with its green fields, sprouting forests, and red-painted
farm-houses, at Bonnyboy's feet. It was terrible to think that

perhaps destruction was to overtake those happy and peaceful
homes, where men had lived and died for many hundred years.

Bonnyboy could scarcely keep back the tears when this fear
suddenly came over him. Was it not strange that, though they

knew that danger was threatening, they made not the slightest
effort to save themselves? In the village below men were still

working in their forges, whose chimneys belched forth fiery
smoke, and the sound of their hammer-blows could be heard above

the roar of the river. Women were busy with their household
tasks; some boys were playing in the streets, damming up the

gutters and shrieking with joy when their dams broke. A few
provident souls had driven their cattle to the neighboring hills;

but neither themselves nor their children had they thought it
necessary to remove. The fact was, nobody believed that the dams

would break, as they had not imagination enough to foresee what
would happen if the dams did break.

Bonnyboy was wet to the skin, and his knees were a trifle shaky
from exhaustion. He had been cutting down an enormous mast-tree,

which was needed for a prop to the dam, and had hauled it down
with two horses, one of which was a half-broken gray colt, unused