e it first and last, isn't it, Moncrossen?"

The silence, save for the sound of the voice, was almost painful. Men
strained to listen, looking from one to the other of the two big men,
with white, tense faces.

At the words, the blood rushed to the boss's face. His little, swinish
eyes fairly blazed in their sockets. He was speechless with fury. The
cords knotted in his neck, and a great blue vein stood out upon his
forehead. The breath hissed through his clenched teeth as the goading
words fell in the voice of purring softness.

"But it has come to a show-down at last, between you and me," the
greener went on as he slowly and methodically turned the sleeves of his
shirt back from his mighty forearms. "They tell me you are a fighting
man, Moncrossen. They tell me you have licked men--here in the
woods--good men, too. And they tell me you have knocked down drunken
men, and stamped on their faces with your steel-calked boots.

"Maybe--if you last well--I will save a couple of punches for those
poor devils' account. I think you will last, Moncrossen. You are big,
and strong, and you are mad enough, in your blind, bull-headed way.

"But I am not going to knock you out. I am going to make you _lie
down_--to make you show your yellow, and quit cold; for this is going
to be your last fight. When I am through, Moncrossen, you won't be
worth licking--no ten-year-old boy will think it worth his while to
step out of his way to slap your dirty face."

With a hoarse bellow, Moncrossen launched himself at the speaker. And
just at that moment--swarming over the bank at the rollways--came the
men of the upper drive. The leaders paused, and sizing up the
situation, came on at a run.

"A fight!" they yelled. "A fight! H-o-o-r-a-y!"

Then came Appleton and Sheridan with their wives, and beside them
walked a slender, girlish figure, whose shoulders drooped wearily, and
whose face was concealed by a heavy, dark-blue veil.

The two lumbermen guided the ladies hurriedly in the direction of the
office, when suddenly the shrill voice of Charlie Manton broke upon
their ears.

"Whoo-p-e-e! It's _Bill_! Go to it, Bill! Swing on him! Give him your
left, Bill! Give him your left!"

They halted, and obeying some strange impulse, the girlish figure
turned and made straight for the wildly yelling men, who stood in the
form of a great circle in the center of which two men weaved and milled
about each other in a blur of motion.

Old Daddy