as Barker, of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name
in certain saloons was enough to put the fear of God into men even
bigger than himself. A sort of malefic magnetism exuded from every
pore of his skin. When he held up his finger Mamie crawled to him. She
believed, probably, that she was escaping from a drunken father, and
she knew that Tom could and would supply many things for which she had
yearned--a parlour, for instance, possibly a piano, and a silk dress.
She would have taken Dennis without these amenities, but Dennis had
fled to the back of Nowhere without even saying good-bye.

Months after the marriage Dennis came back. Ajax described the wedding
and the subsequent flitting to Barker's Inlet. Dennis listened,
stroking his too thin, straggling moustache. Next day he sold his
horse and saddle.

When he appeared at Barker's Inlet and asked for a job, Tom Barker
smiled. He had heard of Dennis, and he knew that Mamie had given to
Dennis what never would be given to him--the love and confidence of a
simple woman. Into his savage bull-head crept the determination to
torment these two unsophisticated creatures delivered by Fate to be
his slaves, and as such at his mercy.

Accordingly, Dennis was engaged.

Tom's position at the inlet must be defined. Some years before he had
been known as a timber-cruiser--that is to say, a man who "locates,"
during his wanderings through forests primeval, belts of timber which
will be likely to allure the speculative lumberman. Barker, therefore,
had discovered the inlet which bore his name, and in consideration of
his services, and with a due sense of his physical and mental
qualifications, he had been appointed boss of the camp by the real
owners--a syndicate of rich men, who knew that logs were worth ten
dollars a thousand feet, and that the man to make them so was Tom
Barker. The syndicate wisely gave Tom a free hand, knowing that, in
everything which concerned the working of men and machinery to the
limit, Tom would begin at the point where their less elastic
consciences might leave off. The syndicate, therefore, remained in
Victoria, or Vancouver, or San Francisco, and said of Tom that he was
a rustler from "Way back, and as lively as they make 'em."

It will be guessed that Tom's principal difficulty was engaging men.
Having engaged them, he was certain to get plenty of work out of them,
and they couldn't leave till they had earned sufficient money to take
themselv