"That would sound well in a gypsy fairy-story, but it don't fit the style of the Skeets and Bushees. They're too lazy to steal anything that's alive. They want even a shote killed and dressed before they'll touch it. Near's I can find out, the young one was handed to 'em, and they was too dadblamed tired to wake up and ask where it came from. They didn't even have sprawl enough to name her. I did that," he added, calmly. "Yes," he proceeded, smiling at Wade's astonished glance; "I was guidin' a sport down the West Branch just before they drove the tribe out of the Sourdnaheunk country--under old Katahdin, you know! I see her in that log cradle, and they was callin' her 'it.' So me 'n' the sport got up a name for her--Kate Arden, for the mountain. 'Tain't a name for a Maine girl to be ashamed of." It suddenly occurred to Wade, gazing at the old man, that the quizzical screwing-up of his eyes was hiding some deeper emotion; for Christopher's voice had a quaver in it when he said: "Poor little gaffer! Some one ought to have taken her away from 'em. But it's hard to get folks interested in even a pretty posy when it grows in a skunk-cabbage patch." He looked away, embarrassed that any man should see emotion on his face, and uttered a prompt exclamation. Threading their way in single file among the blackened stumps that bordered the Tomah trail to the north came a half-dozen men. "That's Bennett Rodliff ahead, and he's the high sheriff of this county," growled the old man. "There's two deputies and two game-wardens with him--and old Pulaski Britt bringin' up in the rear. Knowin' them pretty well, I should say that it spells t-r-u-b-l-e, in jest six letters. I ain't a great hand to guess, Mr. Wade, but if some one was to ask me quick, I should say it was the same old checker-game that the Skeets and Bushees have been playin' for all these years, and that it's their turn to move." CHAPTER VIII THE TORCH, AND THE LIGHTING OF IT "We know how to riffle a log jam apart, Though it's tangled and twisted and turned; But the love of a woman and ways of the heart Are things that we never learned." --Leeboomook Song. The sheriff and his men tramped into the little clearing and gave the usual greeting of woods wayfarers--the nod and the almost voiceless grunt. The Honorable Pulaski was a little more talkative. He was also in excellent humor. "Hear you and Rod Ide have hitched hosses, Wade!" he cried. "Sheriff here was tellin' me. I'm mighty glad of it. That lets me out of thinkin' I got you up here on a wild-goose chase. I was sorry to dump you, but it would take nine time-keepers to make a foreman like Colin MacLeod, and when he put it up to me you had to go. It was business, and business beats fun up this way." The young man did not reply. Words seemed useless just then.