ut if that wasn't the nearest to miss I ever want to
see! Scared the life near out of me body with the fear that she'd drop
one of them. As long as I'd no one to help me but a couple of women that
didn't dare be mixed up in it, all I could do was to let them get away."

"Now, will they come back?" asked McLean.

"Of course!" said Freckles. "They're not going to be taking that. You
could stake your life on it, they'll be coming back. At least, Black
Jack will. Wessner may not have the pluck, unless he is half drunk. Then
he'd be a terror. And the next time--" Freckles hesitated.

"What?"

"It will be a question of who shoots first and straightest."

"Then the only thing for me to do is to double the guard and bring the
gang here the first minute possible. As soon as I feel that we have the
rarest of the stuff out below, we will come. The fact is, in many cases,
until it is felled it's difficult to tell what a tree will prove to
be. It won't do to leave you here longer alone. Jack has been shooting
twenty years to your one, and it stands to reason that you are no match
for him. Who of the gang would you like best to have with you?"

"No one, sir," said Freckles emphatically. "Next time is where I run.
I won't try to fight them alone. I'll just be getting wind of them, and
then make tracks for you. I'll need to come like lightning, and Duncan
has no extra horse, so I'm thinking you'd best get me one--or perhaps a
wheel would be better. I used to do extra work for the Home doctor, and
he would let me take his bicycle to ride around the place. And at times
the head nurse would loan me his for an hour. A wheel would cost less
and be faster than a horse, and would take less care. I believe, if you
are going to town soon, you had best pick up any kind of an old one
at some second-hand store, for if I'm ever called to use it in a hurry
there won't be the handlebars left after crossing the corduroy."

"Yes," said McLean; "and if you didn't have a first-class wheel, you
never could cross the corduroy on it at all."

As they walked to the cabin, McLean insisted on another guard, but
Freckles was stubbornly set on fighting his battle alone. He made one
mental condition. If the Bird Woman was going to give up the Little
Chicken series, he would yield to the second guard, solely for the sake
of her work and the presence of the Angel in the Limberlost. He did not
propose to have a second man unless it were absolutely necessary,