u here at the old place. I'll
be back to-night to help you eat the trout."

"Where are you going?"

"Over to Wilbur's Fork. There's a couple of men over there that are
shaky. I've had to keep after them or they'd be listening to Rafe
Gadbeau and letting their land go."

"But," Ruth exclaimed, "now when they know, can't they see what is to
their own interest! Are they blind?"

"I know," said Jeffrey dully. "But you know how it is with those
people. Their land is hard to work. It is poor land. They have to
scratch and scrape for a little money. They don't see many dollars
together from one year's end to the other. Even a little money, ready,
green money, shaken in their faces looks awful big to them."

"Good luck, then, Jeff," she said cheerily; "and get back early if you
can."

"Sure," he said easily as he picked up his hat.

"And, say, Ruth." He turned back quietly to her. "If--if I shouldn't
be back to-night, or to-morrow; why, watch Rafe Gadbeau. Will you? I
wouldn't say anything to mother. And Uncle Catty, well, he's not very
sharp sometimes. Will you?"

"Of course I will. But be careful, Jeff, please."

"Oh, sure," he sang back, as he walked quickly around the edge of the
pond and slipped into the alder bushes through which ran the trail
that went up over the ridge to the Wilbur Fork country on the other
side.

Ruth stood watching him as he pushed sturdily up the opposite slope,
his grey felt hat and wide shoulders showing above the undergrowth.

This boy was a different being from the Jeffrey that she had left when
she went down to the convent five months before. She could see it in
his walk, in the way he shouldered the bushes aside just as she had
seen it in his face and his talk. He was fighting with a power that
he had found to be stronger and bigger than himself. He was not
discouraged. He had no thought of giving up. But the airy edge of his
boyish confidence in himself was gone. He had become grim and
thoughtful and determined. He had settled down to a long, dogged
struggle.

He had asked her to watch Rafe Gadbeau. How much did he mean? Why
should he have said this to her? Would it not have been better to have
warned some of the men that were associated with him in his fight? And
what was there to be feared? She laughed at the idea of physical fear
in connection with Jeffrey. Why, nothing ever happened in the hills,
anyway. Crimes of violence were never heard of. It was true, the
lumber jack