"K-keep ahead," said he, cheerfully, and bade her good-night. With this he left her and was happy, for the taming of Sinth had seemed to bring that "some day" of his promise into the near future. At the Pitkin general store his two companions had retired for the night, and he joined a group of woodsmen who occupied everything in the place which had a fairly smooth and accessible top on it. They were all in debt to the storekeeper and seemed to entertain a regard for him not unmingled with pity. This latter sentiment was, the historian believes, rather well founded. They called him "Billy," with the inflection of fondness. Two sat slouching, apologetically, on the counter. One rested his weight, as tenderly and considerately as might be, on a cracker-barrel. Another reposed with a look of greater confidence on the end of a nail-keg. They were guides, two of whom had come out for provisions; the others, like Strong, were on their way to Hillsborough. "Here's the old Emp'ror," said one, as Strong entered and returned their greetings and sat down astride the beam of a plough. "I'd like to know what he thinks of it," said a guide from the Jordan Lake country. Strong looked up at him without a word. "A millionaire has bought thirty thousand acres alongside o' my camp," the guide explained. "He won't let me cross on the old trail. I had to go six mile out o' my way to git here." He smote the counter with his fist and coupled the name of the rich man with vile epithets. "My father and my grandfather travelled that trail before he was born," the angry woodsman declared. Strong leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked at his hands without speaking. One laughed loudly, another gave out a sympathetic curse. "I'll git even with him--you hear me." So the aggrieved party expressed himself. "How?" Strong inquired, looking up suddenly. "I'll git even. I'll send a traveller into that preserve who'll put him off it." He spoke with a sinister suggestion. "Huh!" the Emperor grunted. He understood the threat of the other, who clearly meant to set the woods afire. "Ain't I right? What d' ye come to, anyway, when ye think it all over?" The words came hot and fast off the tongue of the com-plainer. "F-fool," Strong stammered, calmly. There was something in his way of saying it that made the others laugh. A faint smile of embarrassment showed in the face of the angry woodsman. "Me or the millionaire?" he inquired. "B-both," Strong answered, soberly, as the storm ended in a little gust of laughter. Strong had stripped the guide of his anger as deftly as a squirrel could take the shell off a nut. In the brief silence that followed he thought of another maxim for his memorandum-book, and soon it was recorded therein as follows: _"Man that makes trouble sure to have most of it."_ Presently he who sat on the cracker-barrel remarked, "If them air woods git afire now, they'll burn the stars out o' heaven."