"Can he?"
The missionary smiled confidently. And Bat suddenly flung out both hands.
"Say, Les," he cried, "do you think I want to see my partner, and best friend, hounded to a life of hell by that swine, Hellbeam? It breaks me to death the thought of it. Man, man, it sets me nigh crazed thinking that way. Don't I count with you? Don't the others you came along to help count? That dandy gal I've heard you wish was your own daughter? Don't she count? Say, we're all for you, Bull an' Nancy, an' me, just the same as the rest of the folk of the forest. Stop right here, man. Take your place again, an' we'll fight Hellbeam as we've fought his Skandinavia. Say, we'll fight for you as we've never fought before. We'll fight him, and beat him, and keep you safe from that hell he's got waitin' for you. Just say the word, and stop right here. And I'll swear before God—"
Leslie Standing raised a protesting hand. His eyes were unsmiling.
"It's useless, old friend," he said with irrevocable decision. "You don't know the thing you're trying to pledge yourself to. You think me a crazy man. You think I'm just asking for the trouble Hellbeam figures to hand out to me. I'm not. I've got the full measure of the whole thing. And I know the thing I'm doing doesn't matter. I'm not going to change the plan of life I've laid down. I've learnt happiness in the forests. The twilight of it all has been my salvation. Time was when I had other desires, other delights. They've long since passed. Now there's only one appeal to me in life. It's the boys, the scallawags, who haunt the forest like I do. I love them. And my life's theirs as long as Hellbeam leaves it to me. Get just that into your thick, old head, Bat, and for our last five minutes together we can talk of things more pleasant than Hellbeam."
The missionary smiled down into the strong face of his companion. And the lumberman realised the uselessness of further protest. He yielded grudgingly. He yielded because he knew and loved the man. By a great effort he turned his mind from the dread haunting it.
"You've got me beat, Les," he growled. Then he spat in his disgust.
The missionary nodded, and, with a gesture of the hand, he indicated the hidden mills below them.
"It's queer the way the whole thing's completed itself as I hoped and dreamed so long ago," he said thoughtfully. "You know, Bat, that yellow streak in me was a better thing than either of us knew. If I hadn't had it I'd have stood my ground. I'd have fought to the end, and I'd have been beaten, and Sachigo would have crashed. Do you see that? No. That's because you look at things with the obstinate eyes of great courage. While I, through fear, see things as they are. We won't debate it now. The accomplished fact is the thing. You've set Sachigo on top. Sachigo will rule the Canadian forest industry. The foreigner is on the scrap heap. We've helped to build something for this great old Empire of ours, and so our lives haven't been wholly wasted. It's good to feel that when the time comes to pay our debts. That boy Sternford's a great feller. I'm glad about him. Say, I felt I could cry last night when he and Nancy came along like two school-kids to tell me of the thing they'd fixed. I felt like handing them my story and claiming my place as Nancy's stepfather. But I didn't. You see, she's glad about me as Father Adam, a dopey missionary. But I can see her eyes blaze up red-hot with anger at the man who took her mother from her, and denied her existence. No, it's best that way. She's found the man I could have chosen for her, and I'm glad. She's a great lass. She's all her mother—and more."
Bat inclined his stubborn head. He was still thinking of the dogs, and the sled, and all they meant to him just now.