ter."

"I'm ready and willing to work, boss, but I'm fit to arn thirty
dollars, surely."

"So you are, so you are, in good times, neighbor, and I'd be glad if
men's wages were forty. That could only be with trade active, and a
fine season for all of us; but I couldn't take out a raft this winter,
and pay what you ask."

"I'd work extra hard. I'm not afeard of work."

"Not you, Peter. There never was a lazy bone in your body. Don't I
know that well? But look, now: if I was to pay you thirty, I should
have to pay all the other hewers thirty; and that's not all. Scorers
and teamsters and road-cutters are used to getting wages in proportion
to hewers. Why, it would cost me a thousand dollars a month to give
you thirty! Go along, now, that's a good fellow, and tell your wife
that you've hired with me."

But Peter did not go back. "I'm bound to have my rights, so I am," he
said sulkily to Mary Ann when he reached the cabin. "The old boss is
getting too hard like, and set on money. Twenty-two dollars! No! I'll
go in to Stambrook and hire."

Mary Ann knew that she might as well try to convince a saw-log that
its proper course was up-stream, as to protest against Peter's
obstinacy. Moreover, she did think the offered wages very low, and had
some hope he might better himself; but when he came back from
Stambrook, she saw trouble ahead. He did not tell her that there,
where his merit's were not known, he had been offered only twenty
dollars, but she surmised his disappointment.

"You'd better be after seeing the boss again, maybe, Peter dear," she
said timidly.

"Not a step," he answered. "The boss'll be after me in a few days,
you'll see." But there he was mistaken, for all the gangs were full.

After that Peter McGrath tramped far and wide, to many a backwoods
hamlet, looking vainly for a job at any wages. The season was the
worst ever known on the river, and before January the shanties were
discharging men, so threatening was the outlook for lumbermen, and so
glutted with timber the markets of the world.

Peter's conscience accused him every hour, but he was too stubborn to
go back to John Pontiac. Indeed, he soon got it into his stupid head
that the old boss was responsible for his misfortunes, and he
consequently came to hate Mr. Pontiac very bitterly.

After supping on his pipeful of tobacco-dust, Peter sat,
straight-backed, leaning elbows on knees and chin on hands, wondering
what on earth was to become of th