rwise, bustling about as she spoke.

"My voman--she say vait avile," he explained. "Planty more--nice and
hot."

Phil thanked him and smiled across at his companion who was cheering up
wonderfully under the benign influence of the stove.

"Yaow, that vill be tventy-five cents--each vun, tventy-five cents.
Yaow, that vill be suffeecient."

Having thus dismissed further responsibility in the matter, the foreman
got up from the table and spoke to his men, who followed him outdoors
to the day's work. Svenson lagged behind to gulp the remainder of his
coffee and as his heavy boots clumped noisily across the rough wooden
floor he ventured to look again timidly at the very pretty young lady
who sat beside the stove. Her friendly nod and smile sent him
stumbling clumsily out over the doorstep with reddened face and a huge
grin of ecstatic delight.

"Delicious!" she laughed softly.

"Snf! Snf! Well now, you're saying something, Miss Lawson," enthused
Kendrick who had been watching the frying-pan with fascination. "I'm
as hungry as a bear."

Such an unusual breakfast as that was! Such wonderful home-made bread!
Fried potatoes straight from the stove, piping hot and done brown;
sizzling pork and eggs that were fresh laid by those hens they could
hear clucking outside; buns and molasses; even doughnuts and
good-natured looking wedges of pie with the knife-cuts far apart--a
wonderful meal of the substantial sort favored by those to whom eating
at any hour is a serious business. And they ate it with hunger for
condiment, chatting and laughing in their enjoyment.

Mrs. Thorlakson beamed. It was the finest compliment they could have
paid her. Afterwards with many duckings of tongue and shakes of the
head she bathed the swollen ankle in cold water, put some liniment on
it and bound it up. She was an adept in such matters.

During these ministrations Phil strolled down to the water-tank; but,
as he half expected, he found the fungus gone from the top of the
hollow stump and no sign of the envelope inside. Somebody had been
there before them, Podmore probably. He would question Thorlakson
about that later. Not that it mattered greatly. The sagacious Hughey
was due for a severe jolt when he opened the precious envelope to which
he was devoting so much attention.

On returning to the house he found that Miss Lawson very sensibly had
retired for much needed sleep. He climbed the hill to the woods behind
the log s