pure air, and is mostly in his right surroundings when
the forest does its best to hide him up from the eyes of the rest of the
world. Guess he's the best man I know--dead."

For all his grin Arden Laval was in deadly earnest. Nancy stared at the
broad back he had turned on her with his final word. And her indignation
surged.

"I don't believe it," she cried. "I can't believe it. You're just
talking out of years of experience of a life you've probably learned to
hate. Man, if that's your opinion of your fellows, then it's you who
ought never to leave the forest you claim does its best to hide up folk
from the eyes of the rest of the world. You're a camp boss. You're our
head man in these forests. You're trusted, and we know your skill. Well,
it seems to me you've a duty that goes further than just feeding the
booms right. You've a moral duty towards these men you condemn. You can
help them. It should surely be your pride to lift them out of the
desperate mire you claim they are floundering in. I'll not believe you
mean it all."

The man turned away as a black-clothed figure emerged from the trees,
and came to a stand at the brink of the ravine some hundred and more
yards to the east of them. Nancy, too, beheld the lonely figure and she,
too, became interested in its movements.

The lumber boss laughed shortly, roughly, and raised an arm, pointing as
he turned a grinning face to the girl.

"See him, there?" he cried. "Say, mam, with all respect, I'd say to you,
if you're feeling the way you talk, and look to get the sort of stuff
you'd maybe fancy hearing, that's the guy you need to open out to. As
you say, I'm the head camp-boss on the Skandinavia's limits. I've had
nigh twenty years an' more experience of the lumber-jack. An' I'm
tellin' you the things any camp-boss speakin' truth'll tell you. That's
all, I don't hate the boys. I don't pity 'em. But I don't love 'em.
They're just part of a machine to cut lumber, and it don't matter a hoot
in hell to me what they are, or who they are, or what becomes of 'em. I
ain't shepherdin' souls like that guy. It ain't in me, anyway. I just
got to make good so that some day I ken quit these cursed forests and
live easy the way I'd fancy. When that time comes maybe I'll change.
Maybe I'll feel like that guy standin' doping over that spread of forest
scene. I don't know. And just now I don't care--a curse."

But Nancy was no longer listening. The lonely, black-coated figure Lav