tly on her shoulder. It moved
down and took possession of the soft arm under her furs. Nancy shook her
head. But there was no decision in the movement.

"Oh, I wish--" she began.

But she could get no further. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands,
and broke into a passion of weeping.

Bull stood helplessly by. He gazed upon the shaking woman while great
sobs racked her whole body. There was nothing he could do, nothing he
dared do. He knew that. His impulse was to take her in his arms and
protect her with his body against the things which gave her pain.
But--somehow he felt that perhaps it was good for her to weep. Perhaps
it would help her. So he waited.

Slowly the violence of the girl's grief subsided. And after a while she
turned to him and gazed at him through her tears.

"I'm--I'm--"

But Bull shook his head.

"Come. Shall we go and eat?"

He still retained his hold upon her arm. And as he spoke he led her
unresistingly away towards the camp.

CHAPTER XXI

THE MAN IN THE TWILIGHT

Bat Harker passed out of the house on the hillside. Muffled in heavy
furs he stood for a moment filling up the storm doorway, gazing out over
a desolate prospect, a scene of grave-like, significant stillness.

The mills he loved were completely idle. But that was not all. He knew
them to be at the mercy of an army of men who had abandoned their work
at the call of wanton political and commercial agitators. It was
disaster, grievous disaster. And he told himself he was about to beat a
retreat like some hard-pressed general, hastily retiring in face of the
enemy from a position no longer tenable.

There was no yielding in the lumberman. But to a man of his forcefulness
and headstrong courage the thought of retreat was maddening. He was
yearning to fight in any and every way that offered. He knew that he was
going to fight this thing out, that his present retreat was purely
strategic. He knew that the whole campaign was only just beginning. But
it galled his spirit that his first move must be a--retreat.

The late winter day was fiercely threatening, fit setting for the
disaster that had befallen. The cold was bitterly intense, but no more
bitter than the lumberman's present mood. There down below were the
deserted quays with their mountains of baled wood-pulp buried deep under
white drifts of snow. And the voiceless mills were similarly half
buried. Look where he would the scene was dead and deserted. There w