room beside his
fellow craftsman, still listening chiefly, and absorbing fact and
anecdote pertaining to a successful lumberman's life. And it was nearly
eleven o'clock, and the pool had been sold, and the bulk of the
occupants of the smoking-room were contemplating their last rubber of
Auction Bridge, when the busy-minded westerner consented to abandon his
particular venue for a brief contemplation of the despised East.

"Oh, I guess there's money in your territory, too," he condescended at
last. "I ain't a word to say against the stuff I've heard tell of
Labrador. But you're froze up more'n ha'f the year. That's your
trouble."

"Yes."

Bull nodded over the latter portion of his third cigar which Mr. Cantor
had not permitted him to escape.

"Sure," the man laughed. "Oh, the stuff's there. I know that. But
Labrador needs a mighty big nerve to exploit. I heard it all from a
feller I met when I was prospecting Quebec. You see, I had the notion of
playing a million dollars in the Quebec forests once. But I weakened. I
kind of fancied my chance against the Frenchies didn't amount to cold
water on a red hot cookstove. I cut it out and hunted my own patch,
West, again. But I guess I'd have fallen for the stories of Labrador, if
it hadn't been for the feller who put me wise."

"Who was that?" Bull had lost interest, but the man invited the enquiry.

"Oh, a sort of missionary crank," Cantor returned indifferently. "You
know the sort. We got 'em out West, too. They hound the boys around,
chasin' them heavenwards by a through route they guess they know about."
He laughed. "But the boys bein' just boys, the round up don't ever seem
to make good; and that through trip looks most like a bum sort of
freight in the wash-out season. Outside his missioner business I guess
the guy was pretty wise, though. And his knowledge of the lumber play
left me without a word. He knew it all--an' I guess he told it to me."

Bull laughed. But the laugh was inspired by the thought that there could
be found in the world a man who could leave Aylin P. Cantor without a
word on the subject of lumber.

"I'd like to make a guess at that feller," he said. "There's just one
man I know who's a missionary in Quebec who knows anything about
Labrador. Did he call himself, 'Father Adam?'"

"That's the thing he did."

"Ah, I thought so." Bull's smile had passed. "Where did you meet him?"
he went on after a moment.

"On the Shagaunty. The Skandinavia C