“Blest if I know who located it!” exclaimed McLean.  “But I have a fairly accurate idea as to who put the blue ribbon on it.”

The Boss smiled significantly at Freckles, who just had come, for they had planned that they would instruct the company to reserve enough of the veneer from that very tree to make the most beautiful dressing table they could design for the Angel’s share of the discovery.

“What will you have for yours?” McLean had asked of Freckles.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll be taking mine out in music lessons—­begging your pardon—­voice culture,” said Freckles with a grimace.

McLean laughed, for Freckles needed to see or hear only once to absorb learning as the thirsty earth sucks up water.

The Angel placed McLean at the head of the table.  She took the foot, with Freckles on her right, while the lumber gang, washed, brushed, and straightened until they felt unfamiliar with themselves and each other, filled the sides.  That imposed a slight constraint.  Then, too, the men were afraid of the flowers, the polished tableware, and above all, of the dainty grace of the Angel.  Nowhere do men so display lack of good breeding and culture as in dining.  To sprawl on the table, scoop with their knives, chew loudly, gulp coffee, and duck their heads as snapping-turtles for every bite, had not been noticed by them until the Angel, sitting straightly, suddenly made them remember that they, too, were possessed of spines.  Instinctively every man at the table straightened.

CHAPTER XVII

Wherein Freckles Offers His Life for His Love and Gets a Broken Body

To reach the tree was a more difficult task than McLean had supposed.  The gang could approach nearest on the outside toward the east, but after they reached the end of the east entrance there was yet a mile of most impenetrable thicket, trees big and little, and bushes of every variety and stage of growth.  In many places the muck had to be filled to give the horses and wagons a solid foundation over which to haul heavy loads.  It was several days before they completed a road to the noble, big tree and were ready to fell it.

When the sawing began, Freckles was watching down the road where it met the trail leading from Little Chicken’s tree.  He had gone to the tree ahead of the gang to remove the blue ribbon.  Carefully folded, it now lay over his heart.  He was promising himself much comfort with that ribbon, when he would leave for the city next month to begin his studies and dream the summer over again.  It would help to make things tangible.  When he was dressed as other men, and at his work, he knew where he meant to home that precious bit of blue.  It should be his good-luck token, and he would wear it always to keep bright in memory the day on which the Angel had called him her knight.

How he would study, and oh, how he would sing!  If only he could fulfill McLean’s expectations, and make the Angel proud of him!  If only he could be a real knight!