the second of his antagonists. The flat
of the implement struck heavily, full on the man's forehead. He fell,
stunned. Immediately the other two precipitated themselves on the
weapons. This time Silver Jack secured the axe, while Darrell had to
content himself with the short, heavy bar. The strange duel recommenced,
while the horses, mildly curious, gazed through the steam of their
nostrils at their warring masters.

Overhead the ravens of the far north idled to and fro. When the three
men lay still on the trampled snow, they stooped, nearer and nearer.
Then they towered. One of the men had stirred.

Richard Darrell painfully cleared his eyes and dragged himself to a
sitting position, sweeping the blood of his shallow wound from his
forehead. He searched out the axe. With it he first smashed in the
whiskey jugs. Then he wrecked the cutter, chopping it savagely until it
was reduced to splinters and twisted iron. By the time this was done,
his antagonists were in the throes of returning consciousness. He stood
over them, dominant, menacing.

"You hit th' back trail," said he, "damn quick! Don't you let me see you
'round these diggings again."

Silver Jack, bewildered, half stunned, not understanding this little
cowardly man who had permitted himself to be kicked from the saloon,
rose slowly.

"You stand there!" commanded Darrell. He opened a pocket-knife, and cut
the harness to bits, leaving only the necessary head-stalls intact.

"Now git!" said he. "Pike out!--fer Beeson Lake. Don't you stop at no
Camp Twenty-eight!"

Appalled at the prospect of the long journey through the frozen forest,
Silver Jack and his companion silently led the horses away. As they
reached the bend in the trail, they looked back. The sun was just
setting through the trees, throwing the illusion of them gigantic across
the eye. And he stood there huge, menacing, against the light--the
dominant spirit, Roaring Dick of the woods, the incarnation of
Necessity, the Man defending his Work, the Foreman!

III

THE SCALER

Once Morrison & Daly, of Saginaw, but then lumbering at Beeson Lake,
lent some money to a man named Crothers, taking in return a mortgage on
what was known as the Crothers Tract of white pine. In due time, as
Crothers did not liquidate, the firm became possessed of this tract.
They hardly knew what to do with it.

The timber was situated some fifty miles from the railroad in a country
that threw all sorts of diffi