me of Things, his worthy
fulfillment of the end for which a divine Providence had placed him on
earth. Anything that interfered with it--personal comfort, inclination,
affection, desire, love of ease, individual liking,--was bad.

Luckily for Thorpe's peace of mind, his habit of looking on men as
things helped him keep to this attitude of mind. His lumbermen were
tools,--good, sharp, efficient tools, to be sure, but only because
he had made them so. Their loyalty aroused in his breast no pride nor
gratitude. He expected loyalty. He would have discharged at once a man
who did not show it. The same with zeal, intelligence, effort--they
were the things he took for granted. As for the admiration and affection
which the Fighting Forty displayed for him personally, he gave not a
thought to it. And the men knew it, and loved him the more from the
fact.

Thorpe cared for just three people, and none of them happened to clash
with his machine. They were Wallace Carpenter, little Phil, and Injin
Charley.

Wallace, for reasons already explained at length, was always personally
agreeable to Thorpe. Latterly, since the erection of the mill, he had
developed unexpected acumen in the disposal of the season's cut to
wholesale dealers in Chicago. Nothing could have been better for the
firm. Thereafter he was often in the woods, both for pleasure and to
get his partner's ideas on what the firm would have to offer. The entire
responsibility at the city end of the business was in his hands.

Injin Charley continued to hunt and trap in the country round about.
Between him and Thorpe had grown a friendship the more solid in that its
increase had been mysteriously without outward cause. Once or twice
a month the lumberman would snowshoe down to the little cabin at the
forks. Entering, he would nod briefly and seat himself on a cracker-box.

"How do, Charley," said he.

"How do," replied Charley.

They filled pipes and smoked. At rare intervals one of them made a
remark, tersely,

"Catch um three beaver las' week," remarked Charley.

"Good haul," commented Thorpe.

Or:

"I saw a mink track by the big boulder," offered Thorpe.

"H'm!" responded Charley in a long-drawn falsetto whine.

Yet somehow the men came to know each other better and better; and each
felt that in an emergency he could depend on the other to the uttermost
in spite of the difference in race.

As for Phil, he was like some strange, shy animal, retaining all i