"I'll just keep out these," grinned Slue Foot, as he selected the false vouchers from the sheaf of good ones, "so them birds don't git no chanct to double-cross me. You've done yer part first rate, kid. There's a little better than three million feet on the rollways that'll be wearin' the green triple X again they hit the sortin' gap. Von Kuhlmann was up here hisself to make sure, an' they's goin' to be a bunch of coin in it fer us—because he says how the owner is down to Minneapolis an' contracted fer the whole cut, an' old Heinie Metzger made a contrack that'll bust this here Alasky gent. He'll be so sick of the timber game, he'll run every time he hears the word log spoke. An' Hurley—he's broke fer good an' all. I be'n layin' to git him good—an' I done it, an' at the same time, I made a stake fer myself."
Connie nodded, and opening the door, spat into the snow. A moment later there was a scraping of feet. The door opened, and John Grey, closely followed by Hurley and Lon Camden, entered the office.
"Hullo, John," greeted Slue Foot. "Huntin' someone, er be ye up here tryin' to git some pointers on how to make money loggin'?"
The sheriff flushed angrily at the taunt: "A little of both, I guess," he answered evenly.
"Who you huntin'?"
"You."
"Me! What d'you want of me? What I be'n doin'?"
"Oh, nothin' to speak of. Countin' the four warrants the kid, here, swore out, I only got nine agin ye—the other five is on information swore to by yer three friends down in jail."
With a roar of hate, Slue Foot sprang straight at Connie, but Hurley who had been expecting just such a move, met him half way—met his face with a huge fist that had behind it all the venom of the big boss's pent-up wrath. Slue Foot crashed into a corner, and when he regained his feet two steel bracelets coupled with a chain encircled his wrists. The man glared in sullen defiance while the sheriff read the warrants arising out of the information of the three I. W. W.'s. But when he came to the warrants Connie had sworn out, the man flew into a fury of impotent rage—a fury that gradually subsided as the enormity of the offences dawned on him and he sank cowering into a chair, wincing visibly as he listened to the fateful words. "So you see," concluded the sheriff, "the State of Minnesota is mighty interested in you, Slue Foot, so much interested that I shouldn't wonder if it would decide to pay yer board and lodgin' fer the rest of yer natural life."