"Sure, ye didn't tell me that any of this had been cut over," he said aggrievedly.
"It hasn't, so far as I know," said Merritt. He put his book in his pocket and walked on briskly for a few hundred yards. Although the logging had been done the preceding winter the signs were clear for those who could read them determining the direction in which the logs had been taken.
"That's Peavey Jo's work," said the Supervisor at last. "I reckon this is where he begins to find trouble on his hands. We'll find out, McGinnis, how much of this timber he has stolen, measure up the stumps and make him pay for every stick he's taken."
"Ye'd better leave Peavey Jo alone. They used to call him 'The Canuck Brute,'" remarked McGinnis.
"He will pay," repeated Merritt quietly, "for every foot that he's got. And I'll see that he does."
"You'll have the fight of your life."
"What of it! You don't want to back out?"
"Back out? Me? I will not! But it'll be a jim-dandy of a scrap."
The Supervisor turned to Wilbur.
"Measure," he said, "the diameter of all those stumps and mark with a bit of chalk those you have measured. We'll talk to Peavey Jo in a day or two."