"He's been a property-holder in this county for five years, every summer of which I have spent on his land. I feel at home in the woods, and I cast my first vote at Tifton." Strong listened thoughtfully. "I want to do what I can to save the wilderness," young Master went on. "R-right!" said the Emperor. "If I were in the Legislature, I believe I could accomplish something. Anyhow, I am going to make a fight for the vacant seat in the Assembly." Strong surveyed him from head to foot. "I wish you would do what you can for me in Pitkin." "Uh-huh!" Strong answered, in a gentle tone, without opening his lips. It was a way he had of expressing uncertainty leaning towards affirmation. He liked the young man; there was, indeed, something grateful to him in the look and voice of a gentleman. "You'll never be ashamed of me--I'll see to that," said Master. Having reached the little pond, Strong gave him his boat, and promised to return and bring him into camp at six. Here and there trout were breaking through the smooth plane of water. The Emperor took a bee-line over the wooded ridge to Robin Lake. There he spent an hour repairing his bark shanty and gathering balsam boughs for a bed. Stepping on a layer of spruce poles over which the boughs were to be spread, in a dark corner of the shanty, his foot went through and came down upon the nest of one of the most disagreeable creatures in the wilderness. He sprang away with an oath and fled into the open air. For a moment he expressed himself in a series of sharp reports, Then, picking up a long pole, he met the offenders leaving their retreat, and "mellered" them, as he explained to Sinth that evening. "T-take that, Amos," he muttered, as he gave one of them another blow. It should be borne in mind that he called every member of this malodorous tribe "Amos," because the meanest man he ever knew had borne that name. He put his heel in the crotch of a fallen limb and drew his boot. Then he cautiously cut off the leg of his trousers at the knee, and, poking cloth and leather into a little hollow, buried them under black earth. Slowly the "Emperor of the Woods" climbed a ridge on his way to Lost River camp, one leg bare to the knee. Walking, he thought of Annette. Lately misfortune had come between them, and now he seemed to be getting farther from the trail of happiness. At a point on Balsam Hill he came into the main thoroughfare of the woodsmen which leads from Bear Mountain to Lost River camp. Where he could see far down the big trail, under arches of evergreen, he sat on a stump to rest. His bootless foot, now getting sore, rested on a giant toadstool.