ndless grind. They did their best, though,
and struggled along for a few rods. The wheels struck a rock in the road
and they stopped. I urged them on and they tried again, but the load
wouldn't budge. There was but one thing to do,--to double with the team
behind, and I slid off to make the coupling.

"Murphy had been watching it all in silence,--a bad sign with him. When
he saw what I was going to do he held up his hand to the rear team, which
meant:'Stay where you are.' 'Give over the lines,' he said to me.

"I knew what that meant. I'd seen him cripple animals before; but that
was when I first came. Since then I'd had another year to grow and to get
hard and tough. I was going on eighteen and as big as I am now almost;
and I wasn't afraid of him then or of any human being alive.

"'It's no use,' I answered. 'We may as well double and save time.'

"He said something then, no matter what; I was used to being sworn at.

"'No,' I said.

"He jumped off the load at that. I thought it was between us, so I jerked
off my big mittens to be ready; but the mules' turn was to come first, it
seems. He didn't wait for anything, just simply went at them, like a
maniac, like a demon. I won't tell you about it--it was too horribly
brutal--or about what followed. I simply saw red. For the first time and
the last time in my life, I hope, I fought a man--fought like a beast,
tooth and nail. When it was over he was lying there in the mud we'd
made, unconscious; and I was looking down at him and gasping for breath.
I was bleeding in a dozen places, for he had a knife; but I never
noticed. I suppose I stood there so for a minute looking at him, the
other three men who had come up looking at me, and not one of us saying a
word. I reached over and felt of him from head to foot. There were no
bones broken and he was breathing steadily. So I did what I suppose was a
cruel thing, but one I've never regretted to this day, though I've never
seen him since. I simply rolled him over and over in the mud and slush
out of the road--and left him to come to. After that we pulled off the
second log from each of the four wagons and left them there beside the
track. Then we drove on to town, leaving him there; sitting up by that
time, still dazed, by the side of the road. There was just one logging
train a day on that stub, and when we pulled into town it was waiting.
Without a word of understanding, or our pay for the month, the four of us
took that t