girl as there'll be in Aspohegan. Don't know anything about the
lad's father, nor don't want to. The man that'd treat a girl like Sarah
Vandine that way--hangin 's too good for 'im."

MacPherson's face flushed crimson, and he dropped his eyes.

"Boys," said he, huskily, "ef 'Lije Vandine had 'a' served me as he
intended, I guess as how I'd have only got my deserts. I reckon as how
_I'm_ the little lad's father!"

The hands stared at each other. Nothing could make them forget what
MacPherson had just done. They were all daring and ready in emergency,
but each man felt that he would have thought twice before jumping into
the basin when the deals were running on the slides. The foreman could
have bitten his tongue out for what he had just said. He tried to mend
matters.

"I wouldn't have thought you was that sort of a man, to judge from what
I've just seen o' you," he explained. "Anyhow, I reckon you've more'n
made up this day for the wrong you done when you was younger. But Sarah
Vandine's as good a girl as they make, an' I don't hardly see how you
could 'a' served her that trick."

A certain asperity grew in the foreman's voice as he thought of it; for,
as his wife used to say, he "set a great store by 'Lije's girl, not
havin' no daughter of his own."

"It was lies as done it, boys," said MacPherson. "As for _whose_ lies,
why _that_ ain't neither here nor there, now--an' she as did the
mischief's dead and buried--and before she died she told me all about
it. That was last winter--of the grippe--and I tell you I've felt bad
about Sarah ever since. An' to think the little lad's mine! _Boys_, but
ain't he a beauty?" And Sandy's face began to beam with satisfaction at
the thought.

By this time all the hands looked gratified at the turn affairs were, to
them, so plainly taking. Every one returned to work, the foreman
remarking aside to a chum, "I reckon Sarah's all right." And in a minute
or two the saws were once more shrieking their way through the logs and
slabs and deals.

On the following morning, as 'Lije Vandine tended his vicious little
circular, he found its teeth needed resetting. They had been tried by a
lot of knotty timber. He unshipped the saw and took it to the foreman.
While he was waiting for the latter to get him another saw, Sandy
MacPherson came up. With a strong effort Vandine restrained himself from
holding out his hand in grateful greeting. There was a lull in the
uproar, the men forgetting