“Oh, good Lordy!” lamented Kinney. “What am I goin' to do? Why, man! It's a good three mile and more to Equity, and the woods is full of catamounts. I tell ye 't aint safe for ye.” He kept following Bartley down the path to the road. “I'll risk it,” said Bartley. Kinney had left the door of the camp open, and the yells and curses of the awakened sleepers recalled him to himself. “Well, well! If you will _go_” he groaned in despair, “here's that money.” He plunged his doughy hand into his pocket, and pulled out a roll of bills. “Here it is. I haint time to count it; but it'll be all right, anyhow.” Bartley did not even turn his head to look round at him. “Keep your money!” he said, as he plunged forward through the snow. “I wouldn't touch a cent of it to save your life.” “All right,” said Kinney, in hapless contrition, and he returned to shut himself in with the reproaches of the loggers and the upbraiding of his own heart. Bartley dashed along the road in a fury that kept him unconscious of the intense cold; and he passed half the night, when he was once more in his own room, packing his effects against his departure next day. When all was done, he went to bed, half wishing that he might never rise from it again. It was not that he cared for Kinney; that fool's sulking was only the climax of a long series of injuries of which he was the victim at the hands of a hypercritical omnipotence. Despite his conviction that it was useless to struggle longer against such injustice, he lived through the night, and came down late to breakfast, which he found stale, and without the compensating advantage of finding himself alone at the table. Some ladies had lingered there to clear up on the best authority the distracting rumors concerning him which they had heard the day before. Was it true that he had intended to spend the rest of the winter in logging? and _was_ it true that he was going to give up the Free Press? and was it _true_ that Henry Bird was going to be the editor? Bartley gave a sarcastic confirmation to all these reports, and went out to the printing-office to gather up some things of his. He found Henry Bird there, looking pale and sick, but at work, and seemingly in authority. This was what Bartley had always intended when he should go out, but he did not like it, and he resented some small changes that had already been made in the editor's room, in tacit recognition of his purpose not to occupy it again.