credit."

"Eet is good. In the woods, there are many men. The log, he is pile
all about the mill. Three thousand tie, already they are stack up."

"And the woman--she has caused no trouble?"

"No. Peuff! I have no see her. Mebbe so, eet was a mistake."

"Maybe, Ba'tiste, but I was sure I recognized her. The Blackburn crowd
hasn't given up the ghost yet?"

"Ah, no. But eet will. Still they think that we cannot fill the
contract. They think that after the first shipment or so, then we will
have to quit."

"They may be right, Ba'tiste. It would require nearly two thousand men
to keep that mill supplied with logs, once we get into production,
outside of the regular mill force, under conditions such as they are
now. It would be ruinous. We've got to find some other way, Ba'tiste,
of getting our product to the mill. That's all there is to it."

"Ba'teese, he have think of a way--that he have keep secret. Ba'teese,
he have a, what-you-say, hump."

"Hunch, you mean?"

"Ah, _oui_. Eet is this. We will not bring the log to the mill. We
will bring the mill to the log. We have to build the new plant, yes,
_oui_? Then, _bon_, we shall build eet in the forest, where there is
the lumber."

"Quite so. And then who will build a railroad switch that can
negotiate the hills to the mill?"

"Ah!" Ba'tiste clapped a hand to his forehead. "_Veritas_? I am the
prize, what-you-say, squash! Ba'teese, he never think of eet!" A
moment he sat glum, only to surge with another idea. "But, now,
Ba'teese have eet! He shall go to Medaine! He shall tell her to write
to the district attorney of Boston--that he will tell her--"

"It was part of my agreement, Ba'tiste, that he be forced to make no
statements regarding my innocence."

"Ah, but--"

"It was either that, or lose the machinery. He's in business. He's
afraid of notoriety. The plain, cold truth is that he tried to
railroad me, and only my knowledge of that fact led him into doing a
decent and honorable thing. But I sealed any chance of his moral aid
when I made my bargain. It was my only chance."

Slowly Ba'tiste nodded and slapped the reins on the back of the horse.

"Ba'teese will not see Medaine," came at last, and they went on.

Again the waiting game, but a busy game however, one which kept the ice
roads polished and slippery; which resulted, day by day, in a
constantly growing mountain of logs about the diminutive sawmill. One
in which