cathedral windows were the long openings between the trees, filled with rifts of blue, rays of gold, and the shifting emerald of leaves!  Where could be found mosaics to match this aisle paved with living color and glowing light?  Was Freckles a devout Christian, and did he worship here?  Or was he an untaught heathen, and down this vista of entrancing loveliness did Pan come piping, and dryads, nymphs, and fairies dance for him?

Who can fathom the heart of a boy?  McLean had been thinking of Freckles as a creature of unswerving honesty, courage, and faithfulness.  Here was evidence of a heart aching for beauty, art, companionship, worship.  It was writ large all over the floor, walls, and furnishing of that little Limberlost clearing.

When Duncan came, McLean told him the story of the fight, and they laughed until they cried.  Then they started around the line in search of the tree.

Said Duncan:  “Now the boy is in for sore trouble!”

“I hope not,” answered McLean.  “You never in all your life saw a cur whipped so completely.  He won’t come back for the repetition of the chorus.  We surely can find the tree.  If we can’t, Freckles can.  I will bring enough of the gang to take it out at once.  That will insure peace for a time, at least, and I am hoping that in a month more the whole gang may be moved here.  It soon will be fall, and then, if he will go, I intend to send Freckles to my mother to be educated.  With his quickness of mind and body and a few years’ good help he can do anything.  Why, Duncan, I’d give a hundred-dollar bill if you could have been here and seen for yourself.”

“Yes, and I’d ‘a’ done murder,” muttered the big teamster.  “I hope, sir, ye will make good your plans for Freckles, though I’d as soon see ony born child o’ my ain taken from our home.  We love the lad, me and Sarah.”

Locating the tree was easy, because it was so well identified.  When the rumble of the big lumber wagons passing the cabin on the way to the swamp wakened Freckles next morning, he sprang up and was soon following them.  He was so sore and stiff that every movement was torture at first, but he grew easier, and shortly did not suffer so much.  McLean scolded him for coming, yet in his heart triumphed over every new evidence of fineness in the boy.

The tree was a giant maple, and so precious that they almost dug it out by the roots.  When it was down, cut in lengths, and loaded, there was yet an empty wagon.  As they were gathering up their tools to go, Duncan said:  “There’s a big hollow tree somewhere mighty close here that I’ve been wanting for a watering-trough for my stock; the one I have is so small.  The Portland company cut this for elm butts last year, and it’s six feet diameter and hollow for forty feet.  It was a buster!  While the men are here and there is an empty wagon, why mightn’t I load it on and tak’ it up to the barn as we pass?”

McLean said he was very willing, ordered the driver to break line and load the log, detailing men to assist.  He told Freckles to ride on a section of the maple with him, but now the boy asked to enter the swamp with Duncan.