"You'd better save your wire edge, Mr. Britt," counselled Lane. "You're going to need it. Come here till I show you something." One of the sheriff's men lighted a fresh sheet of bark at the dying flare of the other, and Lane led the way to the cage, where MacLeod peered desperately between the saplings. "Just a moment, Mr. Britt!" broke in the warden, again checking the lumber baron's fury. "This man came up here to-day with what he said were your orders not to report that fire, and--" "That fire!" roared Britt, fairly beside himself. "Why, you devilish, infernal--" "A moment, I say! When I set up my heliograph he kicked it off the roof. There it lies just as it fell. You and he can settle your part of it! As for my part of it, I have arrested him by my authority as a fire warden. The sheriff, here, can take him whenever he gives me a receipt and makes note of my complaint." "I did what you told me to, Mr. Britt," protested MacLeod, his voice breaking. "He was reportin' the first puff of smoke, and said that you and your orders could go to thunder. He didn't pay any attention--and I just did what you told me to. I--" "Shut up!" The Honorable Pulaski, crimson with anger, fearful of his own part in this conspiracy, and shamed by the exposure of his methods, bellowed his order. "We'll settle this later. Knock away those saplings, some one. MacLeod, get down this mountain, even if you break your neck doing it, and get your crew to the front of that fire! I--I--haven't got breath to talk to you the way you need to be talked to. As you stand, you're only half a man on account of a girl." He darted a quivering finger at the disabled arm. "And it's your other little d--n fool of a girl at Misery that torched that fire when she heard that you'd jilted her. Now, is it women or woods after this?" "Woods, Mr. Britt!" stammered the boss, eager to conciliate this raging bull. "Then get to the front of that fire and stop it, even if you have to lie down and roll over on it. It's a fire your pauper sweetheart started, and you've arranged, by your infernal bull-headedness, to let it burn. Stop it or keep going! It won't be healthy in my neighborhood." "I'll stop it or die tryin', Mr. Britt." Lane leaned his back against the cage and faced the group, his gaunt arms reaching from side to side. "You can't free a prisoner that way, Mr. Britt," he said, firmly. "You take this man away from me--or if the high sheriff, here, lets him go--I'll report the thing under oath to the governor and the people of this State; and I reckon you can't afford to have that done. I propose to have it known why Linus Lane didn't do his duty in reporting that fire."