rifle nor gun in his hand, and his narrow leathern belt was
empty of either knife or revolver.

A half-mile from the main road, which seemed to him to have dropped out
of sight the moment he had left it, he came upon a half-cleared area,
where the hastily-cut stumps of pines, of irregular height, bore an odd
resemblance to the broken columns of some vast and ruined temple. A few
fallen shafts, denuded of their bark and tessellated branches, sawn into
symmetrical cylinders, lay beside the stumps, and lent themselves to the
illusion. But the freshly-cut chips, so damp that they still clung in
layers to each other as they had fallen from the axe, and the stumps
themselves, still wet and viscous from their drained life-blood, were
redolent of an odor of youth and freshness.

The young man seated himself on one of the logs and deeply inhaled the
sharp balsamic fragrance--albeit with a slight cough and a later hurried
respiration. This, and a certain drawn look about his upper lip,
seemed to indicate, in spite of his strength and color, some pulmonary
weakness. He, however, rose after a moment's rest with undiminished
energy and cheerfulness, readjusted his knapsack, and began to lightly
pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir
of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous command
of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow,
deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the bushes,
followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" of sawn planks, which they
were ponderously dragging with that ostentatious submissiveness peculiar
to their species. They had nearly passed him when there was a sudden
hitch in the procession. From where he stood he could see that a
projecting plank had struck a pile of chips and become partly imbedded
in it. To run to the obstruction and, with a few dexterous strokes and
the leverage of his stout stick, dislodge the plank was the work not
only of the moment but of an evidently energetic hand. The teamster
looked back and merely nodded his appreciation, and with a "Gee up! Out
of that, now!" the skids moved on.

"Much obliged, there!" said a hearty voice, as if supplementing the
teamster's imperfect acknowledgment.

The stranger looked up. The voice came from the open, sashless,
shutterless window of a rude building--a mere shell of boards and beams
half hidden in the still leafy covert before him. He had completely
overloo