4]the windows of the lumber company’s outfitting store on the first floor of the building, that the window displays consisted mostly of cutting tools.

[Pg 4]

When the door of the inner office opened and one of those big and awkward giants came out, Wade discovered that King Spruce had evidently placed in the hands of the Honorable John Davis Barrett something sharp with which to slash human feelings, also. The man’s face was flushed and his teeth were set down over his lower lip with manifest effort to dam back language.

“Didn’t he renew?” inquired one of the waiting group, solicitously.

“He turned me down!” muttered the other, scarcely releasing the clutch on his lip. “I’ve wondered sometimes why ‘Stumpage John’ hasn’t been over his own timber lands in all these years. If he has backed many out of that office feelin’ like I do, I reckon there’s a good reason why he doesn’t trust himself up in the woods.” He struck his soft hat across his palm. He did not raise his voice. But the venom in his tone was convincing. “By God, I’d relish bein’ the man that mistook him for a bear!”

“Give any good reason for not renewin’?” asked a man whose face showed his anxiety for himself.

“Any one who has been over my operation on Lunksoos,” declared the lumberman, answering the question in his own way—“any fair man knows I haven’t devilled: I’ve left short stumps and I ’ain’t topped off under eight inches, though you all know that their damnable scale-system puts a man to the bad when he’s square on tops. But I ’ain’t left tops to rot on the ground. I’ve been square!”

Wade did not understand clearly, but the sincerity of the man’s distress appealed to him.

One of the little group darted an uneasy look towards [Pg 5]the door of the inner office. It was closed tightly. But for all that he spoke in a husky whisper.

[Pg 5]

“It must be that you didn’t fix with What’s-his-name last spring—I heard you and he had trouble.”

The angry operator dared to speak now. He looked towards the door as though he hoped his voice would penetrate to King Spruce’s throne-room.

“Trouble!” he cried. “Who wouldn’t have trouble? I made up my mind I had divided my profits with John Barrett’s blackmailin’ thieves of agents for the 

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