After the resolution had been formed he may have dozed. At any rate, the first he heard of Barrett and Withee they had sat down on the steps of the office camp, and the loud, brusque, and authoritative voice of one of them went on in some harangue that had evidently been progressing for a long time previously. "Damme, Withee, I tell you again that you've robbed me right and left! You left tops in the woods to rot that had a pulp log scale in 'em. You devilled the township without sense or system. You cut out the stands near the waterways without leaving a tree for new seed. You left strips standing that will go down like a row of bricks in the first big gale we have. But what's the use in going over all that again? You know you haven't used me right. The sum and substance is, you pay me a lump sum and square me for damages to that township or I'll cancel this season's stumpage contract. I'm using you just as I propose to use the rest of the thieves up here." There was silence for a little time. The voice of the other man was subdued, even disheartened. "I've said about all I can say, Mr. Barrett," he ventured. "Of course, you're rich and I'm poor, and if you cancel the contract I can't afford to go to law. But I've borrowed ten thousand dollars to put into this season's operation, and I've got it tied up in supplies and outfit. I've just got located and my camps finished. The way things have worked for me, I ain't made any money for three years, and I've put my shoulder to the wheel and my own hands to the axe. The operator can't make money, Mr. Barrett, the way he's ground between the owners of stumpage and the men down-river who buy his logs in the boom. You talk of closing your contract with me! Do you know of a man who can afford to do any better by you than I have--just as long as things are the way they are now?" "Oh, I reckon you're about all alike," returned the lumber baron, ungraciously. "I've been a fool to believe anything stumpage buyers have told me. I ought to have come up here every year and looked after my property. But that would be prowling around in these woods that aren't fit for a human being to live in, and neglecting my other business to keep you fellows from stealing. Not for me! I've got something better to do. Clod-hoppers that don't want to stay in their fields all day with a gun kill one crow and hang it on a stake for the live ones to see. I'm sorry for you, Withee, but I'm going to make a special example of you." "It don't seem hardly fair to pick me out of all the rest, Mr. Barrett." "Well, it's business!" snapped the other. "And business in these days isn't conducted on the lines of a Sunday-school picnic."