All eyes turned upon the once violent man. "Of course, I wouldn't fire the woods," he muttered. He was now cool, and could see the folly and also the peril which lay in his threat. "I never said I'd set the woods afire, but the ol' trail has been a thoroughfare for nigh a hunderd year.-I believe I've got as good a right to use it as he has." "Th-think so?" the Emperor inquired. "Yes, sir." "Then d-do it," Strong answered, dryly. There was much in those three words and in the look of the speaker. It said, plainly, that the other was to do what he thought to be right and never what he knew to be wrong. "Lumbermen are more to blame," said another. "Where they've been nobody wants to go. They cut everything down t' the size o' yer wrist an' leave the soil covered with tinder-stacks. They think o' nothin' but the profit. Case o' fire, woods 'round 'em wouldn't hev a ghost of a show." "Look at the Weaver tract," said he who sat on the nail-keg. "Four thousand acres o' dead tops--miles on 'em--an' all as dry as gunpowder. If you was t' touch a match there ye'd have to run fer yer life." "Go like a scairt deer," said he of the cracker-barrel. "'Fore it stopped I guess ye'd think the world was afire." "W-woods g-goin'," said the Emperor, sadly. He thought of the cold springs at which he had refreshed himself in the heat of the summer day and which were to perish utterly; he thought of the brooks and rivers, slowing their pace like one stricken with infirmity, and, by-and-by, lying dead in the sunlight--lying in a chain of slimy pools across the great valley of the St. Lawrence; he thought of green meadows which, soon or late, would probably wither into a desert. "What 'll become of us?" said he on the nail-keg. "Have t' be sawed an' trimmed an' planed an' matched an' go into town." It was the voice above the cracker-barrel. "Not me," said the occupant of the nail-keg. "Too many houses an' folks an' too much noise. Couldn't never stan' it." "Village is a cur'ous place," said another, who had never been sober when he saw it. "Steeples an' buildin's an' folks reel 'round in pairs. Seems so the sidewalk flowed like a river, an' nothin' stan's still long 'nough so ye can see how 't looks." The speaker was interrupted by the proprietor of the Pitkin general store, who came downstairs and flung himself on the top of the counter. "Goin't' the Fourth?" said he of the cracker-barrel. "Might as well--got t' hev a tooth drawed." "I've got one that's been growlin' purty spiteful," said the nail-kegger. "Dunno but I might as well go an' hev it tore out." "I got t' be snaked, too," said the cracker-barrel man. "Reg'lar tooth-drawin' down thar to-morrer," said a voice from the counter.