er as though it were bitter to his tongue. "I tried
one job--I tried once! I ought to know better than to wonder even,
now. And if a man can see no reason for living his life, it's his to
quit, if he wants to!"

And then Steve abandoned his air of tolerance; he changed his style of
play. The contempt in his retort could not have been more measured,
even had it been other than a premeditated thing.

"Quit is the right word," he came back coolly. "I wasn't quite sure
until now. You asked me if the others had told me what sort of man you
had become. And if silence is affirmation, you had your answer. You
inquired concerning my own opinion and I withheld it. Whatever it was
doesn't matter now. Maybe I was guilty of bad judgment, but you have
set me right."

Each word was tipped with scorn. Again, with deliberate intent,
Stephen O'Mara lied.

"And I tell you now that had I been sure you wanted that hemlock to get
you, I'd have left you where you stood. The world is all cluttered up
with fools, as it is."

It came so quickly that Garry was not immediately aware of the attack.
He smiled, covertly.

"Accidents will happen," he feigned a protest.

Abruptly the taller man wheeled, lids a-droop.

"--Fools, and quitters, too," he supplemented, levelly. "Quitters and
men who show a streak of yellow that doesn't assay even a little bit of
pure gold. A minute ago I gave you one reason for my attempt to keep
you here. But I made a bad mistake there, too. It's men I need!"

He couldn't have straightened the other any more quickly had he swung
and slapped his face. Garrett Devereau went paper white. They reached
the edge of the heavier timber and came out upon the soggy sod of the
clearing in the hush which followed that wickedly barbed speech. Steve
always stopped there, whenever he came back to the cabin alone. He
liked to look up at Joe's light, waiting in the window. And now, a
pace or two in the lead, Garry turned back and stared widely into
Steve's cold eyes. It had taken heat lightning to clear that brain
which had been all day befogged.

"That was frank, and altogether plain," he said. "Joe took it upon
himself to hire me, during your absence--the figure mentioned was
eighteen a week. Now, quite as frankly, I am admitting his lack of
authority."

Dusk comes quickly in the woods; twilight is only the briefest of
pauses between daylight and dark. In the half-light as he stood there
it would h