on of what we must do."

"I know it, Earl. One thing is certain: the way matters stand we can't
pay the quarter's rent for this timber land to-morrow unless we borrow
the money, and where we are going for it I haven't the least idea."

"Nor I. It's a pity the Jackson Lumber Company had to go to pieces. I
wonder where Jackson is."

"In Canada most likely. They would put him in jail if they could catch
him, and he knows it."

"He ought to be put in jail!" burst out Earl, who was the elder of the
two Portney brothers. "That two hundred dollars he cheated us out of
would just put us on our feet. But without it we can't even pay bills
now owing; and Caleb Norcross is just aching to sell this land to Dan
Roland."

"If we have to get out, what are we to do?" questioned Randy, soberly.
"I don't believe we can get work, unless we go into the woods as mere
choppers."

"We shall have to do something," was Earl's unsatisfactory response.

The Portney brothers lived upon a small timber claim in the state of
Maine. Their parents had died three years before, from injuries received
in a terrible forest fire, which had at that time swept the locality.
The family had never been rich, and after the sad affair the boys were
left to shift for themselves. The father had owned an interest in a
timber claim, and this had been sold for three hundred dollars, and with
the proceeds the two brothers had rented another claim and gone to work
to get out lumber for a new company which had begun operations in the
vicinity.

Earl was now eighteen years of age, and Randolph, or Randy, as he was
always called, was nearly seventeen. Both lads were so tall, well-built,
and muscular, that they appeared older. Neither had had a real sickness
in his life, and the pair were admirably calculated, physically, to cope
with the hardships which came to them later.

The collapse of the new lumber combination, and the running away of its
head man, Aaron Jackson, had proved a serious blow to their prospects.
As has been intimated, the company owed them two hundred dollars for
timber, and, as not a cent was forthcoming, they found themselves in
debt, not only for the quarter's rent for the land they were working,
but also at the general supply store at the village of Basco, three
miles away. The boys had worked hard, early and late, to make both ends
meet, and it certainly looked as if they did not deserve the hard luck
which had befallen them.

It was su