ees. "We've done a lot of talk, and we've
searched these forests good. And it's all no use. None at all. There's
going to be no penstocks set up this side of the water next year--as far
as I'm concerned. I've done. Finished. Plumb finished. I'm quitting.
Quitting it all."

The lumberman ejected a masticated chew and took a fresh one.

"You see, old friend, I'll go crazy if I stop around," Standing went on.
"I've been hit a pretty desperate punch, and I haven't the guts to stand
up to it. When it came I set my teeth. I wanted to keep sane. I reminded
myself of all I owed to the folks working for us. I thought of you. And
I tried to bolster myself with the schemes we had for beating the
Skandinavians out of this country's pulp-wood trade. Yes, I tried. God,
how I tried! But my guts are weak, and I know what lies ahead. For
nearly six weeks I've been working things out, and for a week I've been
wondering how I should tell you. I brought you here to tell you.

"I want you to understand it good," he went on, after the briefest
pause. "I can't stand to live on in the house that Nancy and I built up.
Every room is haunted by her. By her happy laugh, and by memories of the
hours we sat and talked of the boy-child we'd both set our hearts on. I
just can't do it without going stark, staring, raving mad. I can't."

"That's how I figgered. I've watched it in you, Les. Tell me the rest."

Bat chewed steadily. It was a safety-valve for his feelings.

"The rest?" Standing turned to gaze out at the house across the water.
"If it weren't for you, Bat, I'd close right down. I'd leave everything
standing and--get out," he went on slowly. "The whole thing's a
nightmare. Look at it. Look around. The forests of soft wood. The
township we've set up. The harnessed water power. That--that house of
mine. It's all nightmare, and I don't want it. I'm afraid. I'm scared to
death of it."

Bat moved away from the stump he had been propped against. He passed
across to the edge of the ledge and stood gazing down on the scenes
below.

"You needn't worry for me," he said. "It don't matter a cuss where or
how I hustle my dry hash. I was born that way. Fix things the way you
feel. Cut me right out."

The man's generosity was a simple expression of his rugged nature. His
love of that great work below him, in the creation of which he had taken
so great a part, was nothing to him at that moment. He was concerned
only for the man, who had held out a