"He'll probably be back by night," said the boss chopper, "if 'Stumpage John' Barrett gets through swearin' at him about that last season's operation." Lane stopped and whirled suddenly, the lineman's climbers at his belt clanking dully. "John Barrett in this region!" he blurted. "For the first time in a lot o' years," returned the boss, with a grin. "Suspected that Barn devilled Square-hole and wasted in the cuttin's as much as he landed in the yards. I reckon it ain't suspicion any more! He's been down there on the grounds two days. But he don't get any of my sympathy. A man who stole these lands at twenty cents an acre, buying tax titles, and has squat on his haunches and made himself rich sellin' stumpage,[1] has got more'n he deserved, even if half the timber is rottin' in the tops on the ground." [Footnote 1: The right to cut trees on the seller's land. Payment is based on the measurement of the logs as they are brought to the landing and piled ready for the drive.] The gaunt jaws of "Ladder" Lane set themselves out like elbows akimbo. He whirled and started away again as though he had fresh cause for haste. "I don't want to take any responsibility for sending off any of the crew," called the boss. "What particular word do you want to leave for Withee?" Lane settled into his woods lope and darted into the Attean trail without reply. "I'll be here with my own word," he muttered, talking aloud, after the habit of the recluse. "And what do you make of that now?" asked the cook of the boss, scaling Lane's discarded plate into the cookee's soapy water. "Why ain't he up on his Jerusalem fire station instead of rampagin' round here in the woods?" "He was rigged out to climb a pole and had a telephone thingumajig with him," suggested the boss. "He's strikin' acrost to tap the Attean telephone and send in an alarm, that's what he's doin'. Prob'ly his old lookin'-glass telegraft is busted," he added, with slighting reference to the Jerusalem helio. He followed his men, who were streaming up the tote road towards the cuttings. Far ahead trudged the horses, drawing jumpers. From the cross-bars the bind-chains dragged jangling over the roots and rocks. In five minutes only three men were in sight about the camps--the cook, making ready a baking of ginger-cakes; the cookee, rattling the tins from the breakfast-table and whistling shrill accompaniment to the clatter; and the blacksmith, busy at his forge in the "dingle," the roofed space between the cook-house and the main camp. It was just before second "bean-time" when Lane came back along the Attean trail and staggered, rather than walked, into the "Lazy Tom" clearing. His face was gray with exertion, and sweat coursed in the wrinkles of his emaciated features.