His manner and his odd remark were full of approval and almost affectionate admiration. In half a moment his tongue lazily added, "L-lean her 'gin th-that air rock." In his conversation he conferred the feminine gender upon all inanimate things--a kind of compliment to the sex he revered so highly. "How long will it take?" "Day," said Strong, surveying the ground. "I have to speak in Hillsborough on the Fourth. Suppose we tackle it on my return?" Strong agreed, and while he and the children set out for camp Master remained to fish. Two "sports" had arrived in the absence of the Emperor and were shooting at a mark--a pastime so utterly foolish in the view of Silas Strong that he would rarely permit any one at Lost River camp to indulge in it. He who discharged his rifle without sufficient provocation was roughly classed with that breed of hounds which had learned no better than to bark at a squirrel. "Paunchers!" he muttered, as he came up the trail. It should be explained here that he divided all "would-be sportsmen" into three classes--namely, swishers, pouters, and paunchers. A swisher was one who filled the air within reach of his cast, catching trees and bushes, but no fish; a pouter, one who baited and hauled his fish as if it were no better than a bull-pout; a pauncher was wont to hit his deer "in the middle" and never saw him again. The Emperor stopped suddenly. He had seen a twig fall near him and heard the whiz of a bullet. "Whoa!" he called, his voice ringing in the timber. "H-hold on!" The Migleys--father and son--of Migleyville, hastened to greet the "Emperor of the Woods." They were the heralds of the great king of which Strong had complained that night he laid his heart bare and whose name was Business--a king who ruled not with the sword, but with flattery and temptation and artful devices. The Emperor knew that they were the men who had bought his stronghold; that they were come to shove the frontier of their king far beyond the Lost River country; that axes and saws and dams and flooded flats and whirling wheels and naked hill-sides would soon follow them. "How are you, Mr. Strong?" said the elder Migley, who, by his son, was familiarly called "Pop." He overflowed with geniality. "Glad to see you. Hot an' dry out in the clearing. Little track-worn. Thought we'd come in here for a breath o' fresh air an' a week or two o' sport. Have a drink?" He winked one eye in a significant manner, which seemed to say that he had plenty and was out for a good time. "N-no th-thanks," said Strong, as he surveyed the stout figure of the elder Migley.