Meantime,
rouse the maintenance foreman, and, if any wedges have worked loose,
let him drive them home."

"You're a nice man," commented Mattawa Tom, surveying the stranger
disgustedly as the man stood with the water draining from him in the
cook-shed. "Here, get into these things and keep them as a present. I
wouldn't like the feel of them after they'd been on to you."

"That's all right!" was the cool answer. "I expect the game's up, and
I'm quite ready to buy them of you. By the way, partner, you helped
your boss to pull me out, didn't you? As I said before, I'm not great
on swimming."

"I'm almost sorry I had to," said Mattawa Tom, who was a loyal
partisan. "But don't call me 'partner,' or there'll be trouble."

The stranger laughed, as, after a glass of hot liquor, he arrayed
himself beside the banked-up stove, and presently marched under escort
towards Thurston's wood and bark winter dwelling. Mattawa Tom followed
close behind him with a big ax on his shoulder.

"I might be a panther you'd corralled. How do you know I haven't a
pistol in my pocket, if it was any use turning ugly?" the prisoner
inquired.

"I'm quite certain about you, because your pistol is in my pocket," was
the dry answer, and Tom chuckled. "You weren't quite smart enough when
you slipped off your jacket."

From the door of his shanty, Thurston called them, and Mattawa,
thrusting his prisoner in, proceeded to mount guard close outside until
Thurston reappeared to ask angrily:

"What are you doing there?"

"I figured you might want me, sir. That man's not to be trusted,"
answered Tom, and Thurston laughed as he said:

"Go back, see that the maintenance man has made a good job of the
wedges, and if any of the boys should ask questions you'll tell
them--nothing," Geoffrey commanded. "You don't suppose I've suddenly
grown helpless, do you?"

Mattawa Tom withdrew with much reluctance, and it was long before any
person knew exactly what Geoffrey and the stranger said to each other,
though Gillow informed his comrade that the captured man said to him,
by way of explanation before sleeping:

"Your boss is considerably too smart a man for me to bluff, and I've
kind of decided to help him. Shouldn't wonder if he didn't beat my
last one, who would have seen me roasted before he'd have gone into a
river for me. I'm not fond of being left out in the rain with the
losing side, either, see? It's not my tip to talk too much, and I