get it good."

For a moment they looked into each other's eyes. There was not the
flicker of an eyelid between them. Then Porson turned and strode away.

He passed down the store re-fastening his coat. He paused at the door as
a chorus of rough laughter reached him from the little gathering at the
table. But it was only for an instant. He looked back. No face was
turned in his direction. So he passed out.

* * * * *

The night outside was inky black. The heavy falling snow made progress
almost a blind groping. But Porson knew every inch of the way. He passed
down the lines of huts and paused outside each bunkhouse. His reason was
obvious. There was a question in his mind as to the whereabouts of the
crowd of his men who usually thronged the liquor store at this hour of
the evening.

It was at the last bunkhouse he paused longest. He stood for quite a
while listening under the double glassed window. Then he passed on and
stood beside the tightly closed storm-door. The signs and sounds he
heard were apparently sufficient. For, after a while, he turned back and
set out to return to his quarters.

For many minutes he groped his way through the blinding snow, his mind
completely given up to the things his secret watch had revealed. His
brutish nature, being what it was, left him concerned only for the
forceful manner by which he could restore that authority which he felt
to be slipping away from him under the curious change which had come
over the camp. His position depended on the adequate output of his
winter's cut and on nothing else. That, he knew, was desperately
falling, and--

But in a moment, all concern was swept from his mind. A sound leapt at
him out of the stillness of the night. It was the whimper of dogs and
the sharp command of a man's voice. He shouted a challenge and waited.
And presently a dog train pulled up beside him.

* * * * *

Bull Sternford was standing before the wood stove in the camp-boss's
shanty. He had removed his snow-laden fur coat. He had kicked the damp
snow from his moccasins. Now he was wiping the moisture out of his eyes,
and the chill in his limbs was easing under the warmth which the stove
radiated.

Ole Porson's grim face was alight with a smile of genuine welcome, as he
stood surveying his visitor across the roaring stove.

"It's surely the best thing happened in years, Mr. Sternford," he was
saying. "I'm mor