hy I thought it was some of the Bolshies from down at the
mill."

He withdrew the gun from his coat pocket in explanation. Then he stood
aside.

"Will you come right in?"

The man Bull had discovered made no answer. But as he stood aside, tall,
clad in heavy fur from head to foot, Father Adam strode into the room.

Bull watched him with questioning eyes. Then he closed the door and his
visitor turned confronting him in the yellow lamplight.

"I've made more than a hundred miles to get you to-night," Father Adam
said.

Then he flung back the fur hood from his head, and ran a hand over his
long black hair, smoothing it thoughtfully.

"Yes?"

Bull's eyes were still questioning.

"Won't you shed your furs and sit?" he went on. "The Chink's abed, but
I'll dig him out. You must get food."

The other glanced round the pleasant office, and his eyes paused for a
moment at the chair at the desk.

"Food don't worry, thanks," he said, his mildly smiling eyes coming back
to his host's face. "I've eaten--ten miles back. I rested the dogs
there, too. I've maybe a ha'f hour to tell you the thing I came for.
There's trouble in the woods. Bad trouble. If it's not straightened out,
why, it looks like all work at your mills'll quit, and you're going to
get your forest limits burnt out stark."

CHAPTER XIX

THE HOLD-UP

Ole Porson took a final glance round his shanty. The last of the
daylight was rapidly fading. There was still sufficient penetrating the
begrimed double window, however, to reveal the littered, unswept
condition of the place. But he saw none of it. It was the place he knew
and understood. It was at once his office, and his living quarters; a
shanty with a tumbled sleeping bunk, a wood stove, and a table littered
with the books and papers of his No. 10 camp. He was a rough creature,
as hard of soul as he was of head, who could never have found joy in
surroundings of better condition.

He solemnly loaded the chambers of a pair of heavy guns. Then he
bestowed them in the capacious pockets of his fur pea-jacket. He also
dropped in beside them a handful of spare cartridges. In his lighter
moments he was apt to say that these weapons were his only friends. And
those who knew him best readily agreed. Drawing up the storm-collar
about his face, he passed out into the snow which was falling in flakes
the size of autumn leaves. There was not a breath of wind to disturb the
deathly stillness of the winter n