It was a long tramp to the Deadwater, but he knew the blazed-trail short cuts and took advantage of the light of the full moon for the last stage of the journey. He was eager to report progress and prospects to his father. Ward was not anticipating much in the way of practical counsel from Garry Latisan. Old John had been a Tartar, a blustering baron of the timberlands. Garry, his son, had taken to books and study. He was slow and mild, deprecatory and forgiving. Ward Latisan had those saving qualities in a measure, but he was conscious in himself of the avatar of old John's righteous belligerency when occasion prompted. Ward, as he was trudging home, was trying to keep anger from clouding his judgment. When he felt old John stirring in him, young Latisan sought the mild counsel of Garry, and then went ahead on a line of action of his own; he was steering a safe course, he felt, by keeping about halfway between John's violence in performance and Garry's toleration. Ward was the executive of the Latisan business and liked the job; his youth and vigor found zest in the adventures of the open. Old John's timber man's spirit had been handed along to the grandson. Ward finished his education at a seminary--and called it enough. His father urged him to go to college, but he went into the woods and was glad to be there, at the head of affairs. The operations on the old tracts, thinned by many cuttings, had been keeping him closely on the job, because there were problems to be solved if profits were to be handled. His stroke in getting hold of the Walpole tract promised profits without problems; there were just so many trees to cut down--and the river was handy! In spite of his weariness, Ward sat till midnight on the porch with his father, going over their plans. The young man surveyed the Latisan mill and the houses of the village while he talked; the moon lighted all and the mill loomed importantly, reflected in the still water of the pond. If Craig prevailed, the mill and the homes must be left to rot, empty, idle, and worthless. As Ward viewed it, the honor of the Latisans was at stake; the spirit of old John blazed in the grandson; but he declared his intention to fight man fashion, if the fight were forced on him. He would go to the Comas headquarters in New York, he said, not to ask for odds or beg for favors, but to explain the situation and to demand that Craig be required to confine himself to the tactics of square business rivalry. "And my course in engineering was a good investment; I can talk turkey to them about our dams and the flowage rights. I don't believe they're backing up Craig's piracy!" Garry Latisan agreed fully with his son and expressed the wistful wish, as he did regularly in their conferences, that he could be of more real help.