He went into his den and came out with hat and coat on. At the door he
paused a moment.

"Don't worry," he said kindly. "Nothing's going to happen."

But she stood looking out the window after he left, uneasy with a
prescience of trouble. She watched with a feverish interest the stir
that presently arose about the bunkhouses. That summer a wide space had
been cleared between bungalow and camp. She could see moving lanterns,
and even now and then hear the voices of men calling to each other. Once
the _Panther's_ dazzling eye of a searchlight swung across the landing,
and its beam picked out a file of men carrying their blankets toward the
boat. Shortly after that the tender rounded the point. Close behind her
went the _Waterbug_, and both boats swarmed with men.

Stella looked and listened until there was but a faint thrum far up the
lake. Then she went to bed, but not to sleep. What ugly passions were
loosed at the lake head she did not know. But on the face of it she
could not avoid wondering if Monohan had deliberately set out to cross
and harass Jack Fyfe. Because of her? That was the question which had
hovered on her lips that evening, one she had not brought herself to
ask. Because of her, or because of some enmity that far preceded her?
She had thought him big enough to do as she had done, as Fyfe was
tacitly doing,--make the best of a grievous matter.

But if he had allowed his passions to dictate reprisals, she trembled
for the outcome. Fyfe was not a man to sit quiet under either affront or
injury. He would fight with double rancor if Monohan were his adversary.

"If anything happens up there, I'll hate myself," she whispered, when
the ceaseless turning of her mind had become almost unendurable. "I was
a silly, weak fool to ever let Walter Monohan know I cared. And I'll
hate him too if he makes me a bone of contention. I elected to play the
game the only decent way there is to play it. So did he. Why can't he
abide by that?"

Noon of the next day saw the _Waterbug_ heave to a quarter mile abeam of
Cougar Point to let off a lone figure in her dinghy, and then bore on,
driving straight and fast for Roaring Springs. Stella flew to the
landing. Mother Howe came puffing at her heels.

"Land's sake, I been worried to death," the older woman breathed. "When
men git to quarrellin' about timber, you never can tell where they'll
stop, Mrs. Jack. I've knowed some wild times in the woods in the past."

The man in