ut:

"By God, FitzPatrick, ye go too far! Ye've hounded me and harried me
through th' woods all th' year! By God, 'tis a good stick, an' ye shall
scale it!"

"Yo' and yore Old Fellows is robbers alike!" cried one of the men.

FitzPatrick turned on his heel and resumed his work. The men ceased
theirs and began to talk.

That night was Christmas Eve. After supper the Rough Red went directly
from the cook-camp to the men's camp. FitzPatrick, sitting lonely in the
little office, heard the sounds of debauch rising steadily like
mysterious storm winds in distant pines. He shrugged his shoulders, and
tallied his day's scaling, and turned into his bunk wearily, for of
holidays there are none in the woods, save Sunday. About midnight
someone came in. FitzPatrick, roused from his sleep by aimless
blunderings, struck a light, and saw the cook looking uncertainly toward
him through blood-clotted lashes. The man was partly drunk, partly hurt,
but more frightened.

"They's too big fer me, too big fer me!" he repeated, thickly.

FitzPatrick kicked aside the blankets and set foot on the floor.

"Le' me stay," pleaded the cook, "I won't bother you; I won't even make
a noise. I'm skeered!"

"Course you can stay," replied the scaler. "Come here."

He washed the man's forehead, and bound up the cut with surgeon's
plaster from the van. The man fell silent, looking at him in wonderment
for such kindness.

Four hours later, dimly, through the mist of his broken sleep,
FitzPatrick heard the crew depart for the woods in the early dawn. On
the crest of some higher waves of consciousness were borne to him
drunken shouts, maudlin blasphemies. After a time he arose and demanded
breakfast.

The cook, pale and nervous, served him. The man was excited, irresolute,
eager to speak. Finally he dropped down on the bench opposite
FitzPatrick, and began.

"Fitz," said he, "don't go in th' woods to-day. The men is fair wild wid
th' drink, and th' Rough Red is beside hi'self. Las' night I heerd them.
They are goin' to skid the butt log again, and they swear that if you
cull it again, they will kill you. They mean it. That's all why they
wint to th' woods this day."

FitzPatrick swallowed his coffee in silence. In silence he arose and
slipped on his mackinaw blanket coat. In silence he thrust his beechwood
tablets into his pocket, and picked his pliable scaler's rule from the
corner.

"Where are ye goin'?" asked the cook, anxiously.

"I'm