a thin-faced, sly man, with a penchant for the _Police
Gazette_, secretly admired him.

"Luk' out for th' Rough Red; he'll do ye!" he would whisper hoarsely
when he passed the silent scaler.

But in the three days the Rough Red put his men to work on a little
cabin. FitzPatrick at once took his scaling-rule from the corner and set
out into the forest.

His business was, by measuring the diameter of each log, to ascertain
and tabulate the number of board feet put in by the contractor. On the
basis of his single report James Bourke would be paid for the season's
work. Inevitably he at once became James Bourke's natural enemy, and so
of every man in the crew with the possible exception of the cook.

Suppose you log a knoll which your eye tells you must grow at least a
half-million; suppose you work conscientiously for twelve days; suppose
your average has always been between forty and fifty thousand a day. And
then suppose the scaler's sheets credit you with only a little over the
four hundred thousand! What would you think of it? Would you not be
inclined to suspect that the scaler had cheated you in favour of his
master? that you had been compelled by false figures to work a day or so
for nothing?

FitzPatrick scaled honestly, for he was a just man, but exactitude and
optimism of estimate never have approximated, and they did not in this
case. The Rough Red grumbled, accused, swore, threatened. FitzPatrick
smoked "Peerless," and said nothing. Still it was not pleasant for him,
alone there in the dark wilderness fifty miles from the nearest
settlement, without a human being with whom to exchange a friendly word.

The two men early came to a clash over the methods of cutting. The Rough
Red and his crew cut anywhere, everywhere, anyhow. The easiest way was
theirs. Small timber they skipped, large timber they sawed high, tops
they left rather than trim them into logs. FitzPatrick would not have
the pine "slaughtered."

"Ye'll bend your backs a little, Jimmy Bourke," said he, "and cut th'
stumps lower to th' ground. There's a bunch of shingles at least in
every stump ye've left. And you must saw straighter. And th' contract
calls for eight inches and over; mind ye that. Don't go to skippin' th'
little ones because they won't scale ye high. 'Tis in the contract so.
And I won't have th' tops left. There's many a good log in them, an' ye
trim them fair and clean."

"Go to hell, you--" shouted the Rough Red. "Where th' b