f you don't go other
fellers will--fellers thet's wuth somethin'. Now I orders ye ter get
offen my land. Begone!"

What happened next was such a tumult of abruptness that Brent found
himself standing inactive, not fully grasping the meaning of the
situation. From Bud came a roar of anger as he lunged and grappled
with the bearded elder, carrying him back in the onslaught. With a
belated realization, Brent threw himself forward but just as his hand
fell on the shoulder of Bud Sellers he heard a report, muffled because
it was fired between two savagely embraced bodies. The lumber buyer
had seen no weapon drawn. That had been the instinctive legerdemain of
mountain quickness, which even drink had not blunted. As he wrenched
Bud back, the wounded figure stood for a moment swaying on legs that
slowly and grotesquely buckled into collapse at the knees until Aaron
McGivins crumpled down in a shapeless heap.

Bud Sellers wrenched himself free with a muscular power that almost
hurled Brent to the ground, and the pistol fell from his hand. For a
moment the young assailant stood there with an expression of dismayed
shock, as though, in his sleep, he had committed a crime and had
awakened into an appalled realization. Then, ignoring Brent, he
wheeled and lunged madly into the laurel.

Figures came running in response to the alarm of pistol report and
shouting, but old man McGivins, whom they carried to the nearest
bonfire, feebly nodded his head. Parson Acup was bending over him and
when he rose it was with a dubious face.

"I fears me thet wound's mighty liable ter be a deadener," he said.

Then the wounded man lifted a trembling hand. "Git me over home," he
directed shortly, "An' fer God's sake, boys, go forward with this work
till hit's finished."

CHAPTER II

Through the tree tops came a confusion of voices, but none of them
human. A wind was racing to almost gale-like violence and with it came
the inrush of warm air to peaks and valleys that had been tight-frozen.
Between precipices echoed the crash of ice sliding loose and
splintering as it fell in ponderous masses. Men sweating in the glare
of collossal bonfires toiled at the work of re-inforcing the dam.

They had been faithful; they were still faithful, but the stress of
exhaustion was beginning to sap their morale; to drive them into
irritability so that, under the strain of almost superhuman exertion,
they threatened to break. Brent was not