The eyes focussed on him saw the tense ridges of his seamed face tighten and the gray of an awful passion settle there. "After all the rest of it, you're forcing me to stand here and put it in words, are you, you sneak?" he yelped, thrusting that boding visage towards the timber baron. "You're hiding behind these men! Well, let's see how long they'll stand in front of you! You've got to have 'em hear it, eh? Then you listen to it, woodsmen!" His voice broke suddenly into a frightful yell. "He stole my wife! He stole her! I say he stole her! That's what I want of him, now that he's here where I can meet him in God's open country, plain man to plain man!" "He's lying to you," quavered Barrett. But his eyes shifted, and the keen and candid gaze of the woodsmen detected his paltering. "I was away earning an honest living, and he came along with his airs and his money and fooled her and stole her--stole her and threw her away. It was play for him; it was death for her, and damnation for me. I ain't blaming her, men"--his voice had a sob in it--"she was too young for me. I ought to have known better. Our little house was on his land that he had stolen from the people of this State. Then he came and stole _her_!" He was now close to Barrett, his bony fist slashing the air over the baron's shrinking head. "It wasn't that way," stammered Barrett. "I was up there with some friends fishing and exploring on my lands. It was years ago. The young woman cooked meals for us. I went farther north to some other townships of mine, and she went along to take care of camp. That's all there was to it, men!" He spread out his palms and tried to smile. "You stole her!" iterated Lane. "I came home, men, and she was gone out of our little house. I found just four walls, cold and empty, the key under the rug, and a letter on the table--and I've got that letter, John Barrett! And when you were tired of her up there in the woods you tossed her away like you tossed the lemon-skins out of your whiskey-glass. You didn't wait to see where she fell--she and your child--your child! Curse you, Barrett, I've never wanted to meet you! I sent word to you to keep out of these woods. I sent that word by the man you asked to bribe me--as though your money could do everything for you in this world! You thought you could sneak in here after all these years, because I was tied on the top of Jerusalem. But I'm here! What do you think, men? The fire that is roaring up from Misery township was set by this man's own daughter--the child that he tossed away in the woods. You that know the Skeets and Bushees know her. She set the fire! That's why I'm here. It's his child--his and hers. I don't know whether heaven or hell planned it, but now that I've met you, Barrett, you're going with me!"