with 'em?"

He enjoyed his well-earned reputation for choler, and as Bannon told him
what he had discovered that morning, the old man paced the room in a
regular beat, pausing every time he came to a certain tempting bit of
blank wall to deal it a thump with his big fist. When the whole
situation was made clear to him, he stopped walking and cursed the whole
G. & M. system, from the ties up. "I'll make 'em smart for that," he
said. "They haul those planks whether they want to or not. You hear me
say it. There's a law that covers a case like that. I'll prosecute 'em.
They'll see whether J. B. Sloan is a safe kind of man to monkey with.
Why, man," he added, turning sharply to Bannon, "why don't you get mad?
You don't seem to care--no more than the angel Gabriel."

[Illustration: HE ... CURSED THE WHOLE G. & M. SYSTEM, FROM THE TIES UP]

"I don't care a damn for the G. & M. I want the cribbing."

"Don't you worry. I'll have the law on those fellows----"

"And I'd get the stuff about five years from now, when I was likely
enough dead."

"What's the best way to get it, according to your idea?"

"Take it over to Manistogee in wagons and then down by barges."

Sloan snorted. "You'd stand a chance to get some of it by Fourth of July
that way."

"Do you want to bet on that proposition?"

Sloan made no reply. He had allowed his wrath to boil for a few minutes
merely as a luxury. Now he was thinking seriously of the scheme. "It
sounds like moonshine," he said at last, "but I don't know as it is. How
are you going to get your barges?"

"I've got one already. It leaves Milwaukee to-night."

Sloan looked him over. "I wish you were out of a job," he said. Then
abruptly he went on: "Where are your wagons coming from? You haven't got
them all lined up in the yard now, have you? It'll take a lot of them."

"I know it. Well, we'll get all there are in Ledyard. There's a
beginning. And the farmers round here ain't so very fond of the G. & M.,
are they? Don't they think the railroad discriminates against them--and
ain't they right about it? I never saw a farmer yet that wouldn't grab a
chance to get even with a railroad."

"That's about right, in this part of the country, anyway."

"You get up a regular circus poster saying what you think of the G. &
M., and call on the farmers to hitch up and drive to your lumber yard.
We'll stick that up at every crossroads between here and Manistogee."

Sloan was scribbling on a memoran