il's breadth in the clinging dirt, with
the noise of a giant's kiss.

'You're getting her!' Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. 'Hing on! Hing
on, lads, or she'll master ye! Ah!'

Sailor's left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the men
whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for
it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair.

'Hai!' shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across
Sailor's loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed
as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him.
The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt
ground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor
snapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and
snorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather.

'Dat's the very first time I've knowed you lay into Sailor--to hurt
him,' said Lewknor.

'It is,' said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. 'But
I'd ha' laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we'll twitch her
down the hill a piece--she lies just about right--and get her home by
the low road. My team'll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mind
out!'

He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log half
rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed by
the wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing to
see but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowth
still shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints.

'Ye heard him?' Simon Cheyneys asked. 'He cherished his horse, but he'd
ha' laid him open in that pinch.'

'Not for his own advantage,' said Puck quickly. ''Twas only to shift the
log.'

'I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world--if
so be you're hintin' at any o' Frankie's doings. He never hit beyond
reason or without reason,' said Simon.

'I never said a word against Frankie,' Puck retorted, with a wink at the
children. 'An' if I did, do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so,
seeing how you--'

'Why don't it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which knowed
Frankie for all he was?' The burly sack-clad man puffed down at cool
little Puck.

'Yes, and the first which set out to poison him--Frankie--on the high
seas--'

Simon's angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his immense
hands, but Puck stood off a