drainage of the forest, and of the best way in which the timber sale was
to be logged in order to do the least possible damage to the forest.

In a half an hour or so Wilbur dropped back to the Supervisor.

"I think, sir," he said, "that I can do that without any trouble. But I
can't do it as fast as McGinnis, sir, for he can tell the size of a
tree just by looking at it. I shall have to use the calipers for a day
or two."

Merritt looked at him.

"For a day or two?" he said. "McGinnis has been doing it for thirty
years. In these Western forests, too. You take him to an Eastern forest
and even now he wouldn't be sure of estimating correctly. You use the
calipers for a year or two!"

Wilbur, accordingly, quickened his pace, and, going along a little to
the left and in advance of the Supervisor, took up his share of the
work. He found that he had to depend entirely upon McGinnis for his
compass direction, and that he was only doing about one tree to
McGinnis' six, but still every hour that passed by gave him greater
confidence. The afternoon was wearing away when suddenly they came to a
part of the forest in which some timber seemed to have been cut during
the winter preceding. McGinnis dropped back.

"Sure, ye didn't tell me that any of this had been cut over," he said
aggrievedly.

"It hasn't, so far as I know," said Merritt. He put his book in his
pocket and walked on briskly for a few hundred yards. Although the
logging had been done the preceding winter the signs were clear for
those who could read them determining the direction in which the logs
had been taken.

"That's Peavey Jo's work," said the Supervisor at last. "I reckon this
is where he begins to find trouble on his hands. We'll find out,
McGinnis, how much of this timber he has stolen, measure up the stumps
and make him pay for every stick he's taken."

"Ye'd better leave Peavey Jo alone. They used to call him 'The Canuck
Brute,'" remarked McGinnis.

"He will pay," repeated Merritt quietly, "for every foot that he's got.
And I'll see that he does."

"You'll have the fight of your life."

"What of it! You don't want to back out?"

"Back out? Me? I will not! But it'll be a jim-dandy of a scrap."

The Supervisor turned to Wilbur.

"Measure," he said, "the diameter of all those stumps and mark with a
bit of chalk those you have measured. We'll talk to Peavey Jo in a day
or two."

[Illustration: WHERE BEN AND MICKEY BURNED THE BRUSH.

Ge