.

A half-dozen other shacks and lean-tos, seen here and there through the
trees, completed the camp. Great fallen trees--they were taking only
the full-grown timber--looking helpless and hopeless, lay this way and
that like broken giants, majestically resigned to the conqueror's axe.

Here in the peace and quiet of the pinking day this inroad of
commercialism struck Steve suddenly both as slaughter and sacrilege;
among the stalwart standing patriarchs and their bowed brethren he sat
his horse staring frowningly at the little ugly clutter of buildings
housing the invaders.

"My beloved old granddad had his nerve with him," he grunted as he rode
on into the tiny settlement. "As usual!"

The cook, yawning, bleary-eyed, unthinkably tousled, was just
bestirring himself. Steve saw his back and a trailing suspender as he
went into the cook-shed carrying some kindling-wood in one hand and a
bucket of water in the other. It was only when Packard, having ridden
to his door and looked in, startled the cook into swinging about, that
the dull-eyed signs of a night of dissipation showed in the other's
face.

"Up late last night, I'll bet," laughed Steve, easing himself in the
saddle. The cook made a face unmistakably eloquent of a bad taste in
his mouth and went down on his knees before his stove, settling slowly
like a man with stiff, rheumatic joints or else a head which he did not
intend to jar.

"Drunk las' night," he growled, settling back on his haunches as his
fire caught. "A man that'll get drunk is a damn' fool. I'm t'rough
wid it."

"Where's Woods?" asked Steve. "Up yet?"

"Yes, rot him, he's up. He's always up. He's--holy smoke, I got a
head!"

"Where is he?" demanded Packard.

The cook rose gently and for a moment clasped his head with both hands.
Then he immersed it gradually in his bucket of icy water. After which,
drying himself with a dirty towel and setting the bucket of water on
his stove, he turned red-rimmed eyes upon Steve.

"You're the guy I fed the other mornin', ain't you?" he asked.

Steve nodded.

"More'n which," continued the cook, "you're the guy as licked Woodsy
las' night in Red Crick?"

Again Steve nodded.

"An' again you're claimin' to run the ranch here? An' to own it? An'
to be ol' Hell-Fire's gran'son?"

"I asked you where Woods was," Packard reminded him sharply. The cook
threw up his hand as though to ward off a blow.

"Whatcha yellin' in my ear for?" he moan