had learned a great deal already. He knew
enough to realize that his new effort must be a clean sweep,--from the
manager down. Distrust had enveloped him completely; even to the last
lumberjack must the camp be cleaned, and the start made anew with a
crew upon whom he could depend for honesty, at least. How the rest of
the system was to work out, he did not know. How he was to sell the
lumber which he intended milling, how he was to look after both the
manufacturing and the disposing of his product was something beyond
him, just at this moment. But there would be a way; there must be.
Besides, there was Ba'tiste, heavy-shouldered, giant Ba'tiste, leaning
over the side of the wagon, whistling and chiding the faithful old
Golemar, and some way Houston felt that he would be an ally always.

The wagon had turned into the deeper forest now redolent with the heavy
odor of the coniferous woods, and Ba'tiste straightened. Soon he was
talking and pointing,--now to describe the spruce and its short,
stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter,
longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the
red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out
in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the
man at his side. A moment before, they had been only pines, only so
many trees. Now each was different, each had its place in the mind of
the man who studied them with a new interest and a new enthusiasm, even
though they might fall, one after another, into the maw of the saw for
the same purpose.

"They are like people, _oui_!" Old Ba'tiste was gesticulating. "They
have their, what-you-say, make-ups. The lodgepole, he is like the man
who runs up and looks on when the crowd, eet gathers about some one who
has been hurt. He waits until there had been a fire, and then he comes
in and grows first, along with the aspens, so he can get all the room
he wants. The spruce, he is like a woman, yes, _oui_. He looks better
than the rest--but he is not. Sometime, he is not so good. Whoa!"

The road had narrowed to a mere trail; Ba'tiste tugged on the reins,
and motioning to Barry, left the wagon, pulling forth an axe and heavy,
cross-cut saw as he did so. A half-hour later, Golemar preceding them,
they were deep in the forest. Ba'tiste stopped and motioned toward a
tall spruce.

"See?" he ordered, as he nicked it with his axe, "you cut heem as far