Freckles helped the Angel climb on a wagonload of canvas in the shade.  She removed her leggings, wiped her heated face, and glowed with happiness and interest.

The gang had been sifted carefully.  McLean now felt that there was not a man in it who was not trustworthy.

They all had heard of the Angel’s plucky ride for Freckles’ relief; several of them had been in the rescue party.  Others, new since that time, had heard the tale rehearsed in its every aspect around the smudge-fires at night.  Almost all of them knew the Angel by sight from her trips with the Bird Woman to their leases.  They all knew her father, her position, and the luxuries of her home.  Whatever course she had chosen with them they scarcely would have resented it, but the Angel never had been known to choose a course.  Her spirit of friendliness was inborn and inbred.  She loved everyone, so she sympathized with everyone.  Her generosity was only limited by what was in her power to give.

She came down the trail, hand in hand with the red-haired, freckled timber guard whom she had worn herself past the limit of endurance to save only a few weeks before, racing in her eagerness to reach them, and laughing her “Good morning, gentlemen,” right and left.  When she was ensconced on the wagonload of tenting, she sat on a roll of canvas as a queen on her throne.  There was not a man of the gang who did not respect her.  She was a living exponent of universal brotherhood.  There was no man among them who needed her exquisite face or dainty clothing to teach him that the deference due a gentlewoman should be paid her.  That the spirit of good fellowship she radiated levied an especial tribute of its own, and it became their delight to honor and please her.

As they raced toward the wagon—­“Let me tell about the tree, please?” she begged Freckles.

“Why, sure!” said Freckles.

He probably would have said the same to anything she suggested.  When McLean came, he found the Angel flushed and glowing, sitting on the wagon, her hands already filled.  One of the men, who was cutting a scrub-oak, had carried to her a handful of crimson leaves.  Another had gathered a bunch of delicate marsh-grass heads for her.  Someone else, in taking out a bush, had found a daintily built and lined little nest, fresh as when made.

She held up her treasures and greeted McLean, “Good morning, Mr. Boss of the Limberlost!”

The gang shouted, while he bowed profoundly before her.

“Everyone listen!” cried the Angel, climbing a roll of canvas.  “I have something to say!  Freckles has been guarding here over a year now, and he presents the Limberlost to you, with every tree in it saved; for good measure he has this morning located the rarest one of them all:  the one in from the east line, that Wessner spoke of the first day—­nearest the one you took out.  All together!  Everyone!  Hurrah for Freckles!”