d, his attitude rather pleased
some of the rest, for there was a fresh murmuring, and a cry of, "Give
the Kid a show!"

Then, and nobody was afterward quite certain who struck first, the
trial by combat suddenly commenced. There are very few rules attached
to it in that country, where men do not fight by formula but with the
one purpose of deciding the matter in the quickest way possible; and
in another moment the two had clinched. They fell against the tree
stump and reeled clear again, swaying, gasping, and striking when they
could. It is probable that the Canadian was the stronger man, but, as
it happened, his antagonist had been born among the dales of northern
England, where wrestling is still held as an art. In a few minutes he
hurled the chopper off his feet, and a hoarse clamor went up, through
which there broke a shout:

"The Kid has him!"

Then the two men went down together, heavily, and rolled over and
over, until Cassidy came running down the track and burst through the
ring of onlookers. In one hand he carried a peevie, a big wooden lever
with an iron hook on it, such as men use in rolling fir logs. He
belabored the pair with it impartially, and it was evident that he was
not in the least particular as to whether he hurt them or not. Loosing
their hold on each other they staggered to their feet with the red
dust thick on their flushed faces.

Cassidy flourished the peevie.

"Now," he cried, "is it fighting ye want?"

There was a burst of laughter; and the assembly broke up when Cassidy
hustled the chopper off the field. The cook, with commendable
discretion, had slipped away quietly in the meanwhile, and the two
young women, whom nobody had noticed, turned back among the firs. The
girl in the elaborate draperies laughed.

"I suppose it was a little brutal, and we shouldn't have stayed," she
said. "Still, in a sense the attitude of the one they called the Kid
was rather fine. I could have made quite a striking sketch of him."

Ida Stirling made no direct reply to this, but, as she found
afterward, the scene had fixed itself on her memory. Still it was not
the intent men or the stately clustering pines that she recalled most
clearly; it was the dominant central figure, standing almost
statuesque, with head tilted slightly backward, and both hands
clenched on the big ax haft.

"The man they were tormenting must have done something to vex them.
They really are not quarrelsome," she said.

C