A workman pointed vaguely upward, and Barry hurried on toward the lake, clambering up the hill nearest the clearing, that he might take the higher and shorter road.
He found no Ba'tiste but there was something else which held Houston's interest for a moment and which stopped him, staring wonderingly into the distance.

A new skidway had made its appearance on the side of the jutting mountain nearest the dam.

Logs were tumbling downward in slow, but steady succession, to disappear, then to show themselves, bobbing jerkily outward toward the center of the lake.

That skidway had not been there before.

Certainly, work at the mill had not progressed to such an extent that Ba'tiste could afford to start cutting timber already.