"Have I seen her?" roared the Honorable Pulaski, no longer paying attention to incongruity of questions. "Why, that's the draggle-tailed lightnin'-bug that set this fire that we've been fightin' for forty-eight hours, and that only this rain stopped from bein' a fifty-thousand-acre crown-fire! Have I seen her! I was there when she set it, and only the grace o' God and that Wade's fist saved her from bein' shot, and shot by me! I would have killed her like I'd kill a quill-pig!" Barrett did not look up from the fire. "Then you've seen both those girls, you say? I haven't seen this one in the woods here. But this Wade told me to-day that they very much resemble each other. He has heard some gossip and is making threats. He seems to think I ought to take the girl and care for her." Britt began a bitter diatribe, coupling the name of Wade and the girl as examples of all that is inimical to timber interests and timber owners--but he checked himself suddenly as soon as his native shrewdness mastered his passion. A flicker in his eyes showed that a light had burst upon his mind. He strode back and forth behind Barrett's stool, and gazed down upon the stumpage king's bent back. "Look here, John," he demanded, bluffly, at last, "was there any truth in the story that was limpin' round in these woods about you almost twenty years ago? There was a woman in it--somebody's wife. I've forgotten who." "It was Lane's wife," admitted Barrett, finding confession good for the soul of one who stood bitterly in need of practical advice--and Pulaski Britt was nothing if not practical. "I was up here prospecting, and she was bound to follow me up to camp, and I was infernal fool enough to let her. And when it came time for me to go out of the woods I couldn't take her--you can see that for yourself! I thought I had provided for her--I would have done it, but she dropped out of sight, and I couldn't go hunting around and stirring up gossip. Same way about the child." "Young one has had a nice, genteel bringin'-up," remarked the Honorable Pulaski, sarcastically. Hard though his nature was, he had the sincerity of the woods, and he felt sudden contempt for this man who had uprooted for one brief sniff of its perfume a woods blossom that he could not wear. "I didn't realize it until Lane told me at Withee's camp. I had hoped she had fallen into good hands. It's a devil of a position to be in," the other mourned, returning to his prior lament. "Well," remarked Britt, inexorably, "you can't exactly complain because you are now gettin' only a little of what Lane and the girl have been gettin' a whole lot of all these years. It ain't any use to whine to me, John. I don't pity you much. I've been hard with men, but, by Cephas, I've never been soft with women! It don't pay."