elp you."

Standing beckoned Bat from his seat at the window. He held up the door
key.

"You best take this," he said. "No. 10. And he starts out right away. He
needs to be well on the road before the _Lizzie_ puts to sea."

Bat took the key. He moved away and unlocked the door, and remained
beside it grimly regarding the man who had listened without comment to
the sentence passed on him, without the smallest display of emotion.
Idepski was smoking his second cigarette.

"No. 10. I s'pose that's one of your lumber camps." Idepski looked up
from his contemplation of the cigarette. His dark eyes were levelled at
the man across the writing table. "A tough place, eh? or you wouldn't be
sending me there." He laughed in a fashion that left his eyes coldly
enquiring.

Standing inclined his head. He was without mercy, without pity.

"It's a tough camp in a tough country," he said deliberately. "It's a
camp where you'll get just as good a time as you choose to earn. The boy
who runs it learnt his job in the forests of Quebec, and you'll likely
understand what that means. Well, you're going right off now. But
there's this I want to tell you before I see the last of you--for a
year. I know you, Idepski. I know you for all you are, and all you're
ever likely to be. You're an unscrupulous blackmailer and crook. You're
a parasite battening yourself on the weakness of human nature, taking
your toll from whichever side of a dispute will pay you best. You're
taking Hellbeam's money in the dispute between him and me, and you'll go
on taking it till you pull off the play he's asking, or get broken in
the work of it. That's all right as far as I'm concerned. You've nerve,
you've courage, or you wouldn't be the crook you are. I guess you'll go
on because I've no intention of competing with Hellbeam for your
services. But I want you to understand clearly you've jumped into a
mighty big fight. This is a country where a fight can go on without the
prying eyes of the laws of civilisation peeking into things. And by that
I take it you'll understand I reckon to make war to the knife. You came
here prepared to use force. That's all right. We shan't hesitate to use
force on our side. And we're going to use it to the limit. If peace is
only to be gained at the cost of your life you're going to pay that
cost--if it suits me. That's all I've to say at the moment. For the
present, for a year, you'll be safely muzzled. You see, I don't need to
wo