"He probably isn't laughing very much," replied Britt, dryly. "Not since you plugged that spike boot of yours down on his foot there on the depot platform. A nasty trick, MacLeod, that was." "I wish I'd 'a' ground it off," muttered the boss. He struck his spikes against the bowlder with such force that a stream of fire followed the kick. "He can't do it--he can't do it, Mr. Britt! He can't steal her! I've loved her too long, and I'll have her. You just gave off your orders to me about fighting. You don't say anything to those cattle down there fighting about nothin'. You let them settle their troubles. Here I am!" He struck his breast. "For five years, first up in the dark of the mornin', last to bed in the dark of the night. I've sweat and swore and frozen in the slush and snow and sleet, driving your crew to make money for you. And I've waded from April till September, I've broken jams and taken the first chance in the white water, so that I could get your drive down ahead of the rest. And now, when it comes to a matter of hell and heaven for me, you tell me I can't stand like a man for my own. You call it wastin' time!" He bent over the Honorable Pulaski, his face purple, his eyes red. Britt took out his cigar and held it aside to blink up at this disconcerting young madman. "I tell you, you are taking chances, Mr. Britt. You have bradded me on, and told me that a man of the woods always gets what he wants if he goes after it right. Twice to-day you have stood between me and what I want. You've let a college dude take the sluice ahead of me. I know you pay me my money, but don't you do that again. I'm going to have that girl, I say! The man that steps in ahead of me, he's goin' to die, Mr. Britt, and the man that steps between me and that man, when I'm after him, he dies, too. And if that sounds like a bluff, then you haven't got Colin MacLeod sized up right, that's all!" The Honorable Pulaski winked rapidly under the other's savage regard. He knew when to bluster and he knew when to palter. "MacLeod," he said, at last, getting up off the rack with a grunt, "what a man that works for me does in the girl line is none of my business. But after that kind of brash talk I might suggest to you that a cell in state-prison isn't going to be like God's out-doors that you're roaming around in now." The boss sneered contemptuously.