"Do you take me for a fool?" roared the land baron, hiding fear under an assumption of his usual manner. "Do you think I'm going into the woods alone with you?" "You are, Mr. Barrett." "By ----, I won't!" "I'm no hand for a threat," grated Lane, in a low, strange voice, "but you'll come with me. You know why you'll come with me, because you know what I'm likely to do to you if you don't come." Barrett looked past the man at the door. The dingle was full of crowding faces, for the altercation had called every man out. There was some consolation for Barrett in the spectacle of this silent, wondering mob. After all, he was on his own land, and these men must acknowledge him as their master. "Here! a hundred dollars apiece to the men who grab that lunatic and take that rifle away from him!" he shouted, darting a quivering finger at the warden. But before any one made a move Withee stepped forward into the lamplight. With open, waving palm he imposed non-interference on his crew. "Hold on, Mr. Barrett," said he. "Before we run into trouble by arresting a man that's an officer, we want to know whys and wherefores." "Don't you know why he wants to make me go away into the woods?" bawled the lumber king. "We can't very well know without bein' told," replied Withee, and an answering grumble from his men indorsed him. "He wants to murder me--murder me in cold blood!" Barrett fairly screamed this. "I know what his reason is," he added, seeing that their faces showed no conviction. "I've known Linus Lane ever since he came into this region," said Withee, breaking the awed hush that followed the baron's startling words. "I never knew him to be anything but peaceable and square. A little speck odd, maybe, but quiet and peaceable and square. Most of the men here know him that way, too." Another answering mumble of assent. "Odd!" echoed Barrett, grasping at the suggestion. "You've said it. He's a lunatic. He will kill me." "What for?" called the chopping-boss, bluntly. His natural desire to get at the meat of things quickly was stimulated by ardent curiosity. "You are all sticking your noses into a matter that doesn't belong to you!" cried Lane, his well-known crustiness showing itself, though it was evident that he was hiding some deeper emotion. "I want this man to go with me. It's business. And he's going!" His voice was almost a snarl, but there was a resoluteness in the tone that awed them more than violence would have done. "Are you going to give me up to a murderer?" bleated Barrett, for his study of the faces in the lamplight did not reassure him. "Hadn't you better let us step out, and you talk your business over with him right here, Linus?" inquired Withee, conciliatingly. "He's going with me, and he's going now!" shouted Lane, his repression breaking. "The man that gets in our way will get hurt." He banged his rifle-butt on the floor, and those who looked on him shrank before his awful rage.