"Well, Bill, you are hired! Most men would call me a fool! Maybe I am--but it's got to be proven. I came up through the woods myself and I know men. It is my business to know men. A name is nothing to me--nor references. Both are easy to get. I hire men--not names. And as for references--I don't pay for past performances. It is up to you to make good! "I like your eyes. There is honesty in those eyes--and purpose. Your mother's eyes, I should say." The young man turned his face away and the blood surged upward, reddening the skin below the white bandages. Thoughts of his mother crowded his brain--the beautiful, gentle girl-mother, who used to snatch him up and hold him close--way back in the curly-locks days. He remembered her eyes--deep, soft blue eyes that shone bright and mysterious with love for the little boy--so often such a bad, self-willed little boy--and he thought of the hurt in those eyes. It was his very worst punishment in the long ago--to read the pain and sorrow in those eyes. "No, no, no!" he murmured. "Not her eyes--not mother's! Oh, I am glad that she did not live to know--" He stopped abruptly and faced the other, speaking quietly: "Mr. Appleton, I am not a criminal--not a fugitive from justice--as you may have guessed. But I have been an--an awful fool!" The older man arose and extended his hand: "Good-by, Bill. You better sleep now. I will see you in the morning." As the door closed behind Appleton, the pleasant-voiced nurse appeared at the bedside. She straightened the covers, patted the pillows into shape, and fed the patient medicine out of a spoon. She hesitated when she finished and smiled down at him. "Would you like to send any messages," she asked--"telegrams, to let your people know you are safe?" Young Carmody returned the smile. The nurse looked into his face and knew that behind the smile was sadness rather than mirth. "No," he said; "there is no one to tell." She leaned over and laid soft fingers on his bandaged brow. "Isn't--isn't there a real Ethel--somewhere?" He did not resent the question of the sweet-faced nurse. "Yes," he answered, "there _is_ a real Ethel--but she would not care. Nobody cares." CHAPTER X NORTHWARD, HO! Buck Moncrossen was a big man with a shrunken, maggoty soul, and no conscience. He had learned logging as his horses learned it--by repetition of unreasoning routine, and after fifteen years' experience in the woods Appleton had made him a camp boss. His camps varied from year to year in no slightest detail. He made no suggestions for facilitating or systematizing the work, nor would he listen to any. He roared mightily at the substitution of horses for oxen; he openly scoffed at donkey engines, and would have none of them. During his years as a sawyer, by the very brute strength and doggedness of him, he had established new records for laying down timber. And now, as boss, he bullied the sawyers who could not equal those records--and hated those who could.