Both men stood up. They faced each other, six feet apart. Lavois was older than Ducat by eight or ten years and heavier by close upon twenty pounds. But as Ducat was only twenty-six, both were young men. Ducat had a merry eye; he smiled, and his little black mustache went up at the tips. Lavois had sullen eyes and a wolfish grin.
Lavois jumped and kicked, quick as winking. Mark got his chin out of the way of destruction, but lost the skin of his right ear. Lavois gripped with both arms. They writhed and staggered. Mark had the worst of that hold, but he knew what he was about. He knew all the old tricks of this dangerous game and possessed a lively imagination for new ones. He clung close and tight and let Lavois do the heavy work. Twice he was crushed to his knees, and twice he came up again, each time as if for the last time. And then, with a quick wrench and a mighty effort, he backed Lavois into the fire.
Lavois wore four pairs of heavy socks, and unfortunately all were of wool. No pair was of asbestos. He yelled and loosed his hold and tried to jump aside, only to receive a bang on the nose. He snatched up his blistered feet and landed on his back across the red crown of the fire. Mark jumped the fire, pulled Lavois out, dragged him to the river by his black beard and chucked him in. He sizzled and steamed as he struck the water.
Lavois finished out the drive with his feet in bandages. He didn't do another stroke of work; and whenever the gang moved, following the tail of the drive down the crooked river, he went comfortably in the boat along with the cook and the tin ovens and the gang's dunnage. He was well treated and well fed; and when Ducat's gang overhauled the boss at the mouth of the river, Mark gave Lavois his full time and no one questioned it. Lavois grinned.
"I wish ye'd hove me into the fire afore ye did," he said.
CHAPTER II
YOUNG TODHUNTER
Some hundred miles south of Piper's Glen, and across an international boundary into the bargain, young James Todhunter had just heard the news that college was out of the question; that his father's health had broken down, and that it was most decidedly up to him to do something in the way of earning a living.
"I can give you a small stake, Jim," his father said, "but it won't be very much. It is going to take a lot to take mother and me West and I'll be out of things a long while, I am afraid. How about it?"
James Todhunter came of a family of sportsmen—his father and his favorite uncle had been big game hunters in their day—and he received the news as a sportsman would; and, to his credit, with never a thought of all that his prep. school prowess at athletics had been going to mean to him at college.