A man, tall, black-bearded, sad-faced, his mouth still showing signs of the bruise made by an iron-willed father's fist, stepped from the undergrowth and confronted Little Buck Wolfe squarely. There was a repeating rifle in his hand. There was a dimness in his eyes. It was Nathan himself. He shook hands silently with his brother.
The younger of the two men spoke first. "You've just come down from the Lost Trail, Nathan, I see; what were you doing up there with a rifle?"
"I wanted to he'p you out."
"I see," gratefully. "You didn't shoot?"
"I never got thar in time," said Nathan Wolfe. "When old Alex he comes a-runnin' up to you, I was jest a-fixin' to let Fightin' Lon have it atween the eyes; and ef I'd ha' pulled the trigger, they'd shorely ha' been another buryin' in the Lost Trail dirt. Little Buck, I heerd ye a-wonderin' to Granny thar ef I would dare to come over to ye. Yes, I would dare. I'm to ye, wi' pick or shovel, rifle or club, sink or swim, live or die, ef ye reelly do want me."
"I really do want you," his brother hastened to assure him. "Well, we'll go to work right now. While you finish cutting this piece out of the deadline tree, I'll go back and throw some ties and rails on the upper lumber flat. We'll try to get the track here by nightfall. The grading is all done this far, you see, and the rest of it is all level ground."
Nathan put his rifle down on the leaves. "Gi' me that 'ar ax," he grinned; and soon the woodland began to ring as his powerful arms drove the steel blade up to the eye at each blow in the soft yellow wood.
By the coming of darkness, the two perspiration-soaked men had finished the narrow-gauge road to the deadline. Then they sat themselves down before a crackling brushwood fire, and ate heartily a meal of their grandmother's cooking.
They slept beside the fire that night.