st. I'd have been told about it."

"All right. Climb on."

As Ken climbed into the nearest wagon he was startled to find himself
staring into the face of Frank Meggs. The storekeeper grinned
unpleasantly as he nodded his head in Ken's direction and spoke to his
neighbor. "Now what do you know about that? Old Man Maddox, letting his
own little boy out alone this early in the morning. I'll bet he didn't
let you, did he? I'll bet you had to run away to try to prove you're a
big boy now."

"Cut it out, Meggs," said Atkins sharply. "We heard all about what went
on in your store yesterday."

The man next to Meggs drew away, but it didn't seem to bother him. He
continued to grin crookedly at Ken. "Aren't you afraid you might get
hurt trying to do a man's work?"

Ken ignored the jibes and faced away from the storekeeper. The slow,
rhythmic jogging of the wagon, and the frosty air as they came into the
mountains took some of the bitterness out of Ken. It made him feel
freshly alive. He had come often to hunt here and felt a familiarity
with every tree and rock around him.

The wagon train came to a halt in a grove of 10-year-old saplings that
needed thinning.

"No use taking our best timber until we have to," said Atkins. "We'll
start here. I'll take a crew and go on ahead and mark the ones to be
cut. You drivers unhitch your teams and drag the logs out to the wagons
after they're cut."

There was none of the kidding and horseplay that would have been normal
in such a group. Each man seemed intent on the purpose for which he had
come, and was absorbed with his own thoughts. Ken took a double-bitted
ax and followed Atkins along the trail. He moved away from the others
and began cutting one of the young trees Atkins had marked.

By noon he was bathed in sweat, and his arms and back ached. He had
thought he was in good condition from his football and track work, but
he seemed to have found new muscles that had never come into play
before.

Atkins noticed the amount he had cut and complimented him. "Better take
it easy. You're way ahead of everybody else, and we don't have to get it
all out today."

Ken grinned, enjoying the aches of his muscles. "If it has to be done we
might as well do it."

He was not surprised to find that Frank Meggs had cut almost nothing but
had spent his time complaining to his companions about the unnecessary
work they were doing.

After lunch, which Ken had reluctantly accepted from the o