"No, I haven't committed you, either," he blurted. "Bluff it out! It's the only way to do. It's the way I advised you to do in the first place. The thing looks big to you here in the woods. You're down on the level with it. Get back into the city, and get your tail-coat on and your dignity, and sit up on top of that governor's boom of yours, and the story will only be political blackmail if they try it on you. But they won't. That Wade fellow is one of those righteous sort of asses that like to read moral lessons to other people, and especially to you, so he can work out his grudge. But he's all done. I know the sort. The thing began to scorch his fingers and he chucked it. He's got enough to attend to in these woods. Don't you worry." "But I do worry," mourned Barrett. "And there's the girl to consider. God save me, Pulaski, she's mine! Her looks show it. I can't sleep nights after this, unless she is taken care of in a decent way." "There'll be a dozen methods of doin' it when the time is ripe," urged the other, consolingly. "As it is now, you get out of these woods and stay out, and attend to your business--which is my business, too, when it comes to the governor matter. By ----, you've seen enough in this trip to understand that we haven't got any too safe timber laws as it is. If the farmers get control next trip it means trouble for such of us as take to the tall timber. Buck up, man! Don't believe for a minute that we're goin' to let a college dude and a State pauper queer you. The thing will work itself out." He uttered a sudden snort of disgust, gazing over Barrett's shoulder. "Foolish Abe" of the Skeets had edged out of the bush, the silence after the uproar of voices and conflict encouraging him. He seemed pitifully bewildered. An instinct almost canine prompted him to take the trail to the south, for his only friend, the girl of the tribe, had gone that way. But a strange female had gone with her, and of strange females he entertained unspeakable fear. "Here, you cross-eyed baboon," called the Honorable Pulaski, "go! Scoot!" He pointed north in the direction in which the Enchanted crew had disappeared. "Young man want you. Follow him. Stay with him. Run!" He picked up his discarded sled-stake, and the fool hurried away towards the Notch. "I'd like to see that human nail-keg plastered onto the Enchanted crew for the winter," remarked Britt, with malice. "There's no fillin' him up. He'll eat as much as three men, and that Wade is just enough of a soft thing not to turn him out. If I can't bore an enemy with a pod-auger, John, I'll do it with a gimlet--a gimlet will let more or less blood." Five minutes later Barrett was borne on his way south, his courage braced by some final arguments from his iron associate, his mind made up to adopt the course of indignant bluff suggested by the belligerent Britt. And Britt was stumping north, driving the blubbering Abe before him with sundry hoots and missiles.