“No one, sir,” said Freckles emphatically.  “Next time is where I run.  I won’t try to fight them alone.  I’ll just be getting wind of them, and then make tracks for you.  I’ll need to come like lightning, and Duncan has no extra horse, so I’m thinking you’d best get me one—­or perhaps a wheel would be better.  I used to do extra work for the Home doctor, and he would let me take his bicycle to ride around the place.  And at times the head nurse would loan me his for an hour.  A wheel would cost less and be faster than a horse, and would take less care.  I believe, if you are going to town soon, you had best pick up any kind of an old one at some second-hand store, for if I’m ever called to use it in a hurry there won’t be the handlebars left after crossing the corduroy.”

“Yes,” said McLean; “and if you didn’t have a first-class wheel, you never could cross the corduroy on it at all.”

As they walked to the cabin, McLean insisted on another guard, but Freckles was stubbornly set on fighting his battle alone.  He made one mental condition.  If the Bird Woman was going to give up the Little Chicken series, he would yield to the second guard, solely for the sake of her work and the presence of the Angel in the Limberlost.  He did not propose to have a second man unless it were absolutely necessary, for he had been alone so long that he loved the solitude, his chickens, and flowers.  The thought of having a stranger to all his ways come and meddle with his arrangements, frighten his pets, pull his flowers, and interrupt him when he wanted to study, so annoyed him that he was blinded to his real need for help.

With McLean it was a case of letting his sober, better judgment be overridden by the boy he was growing so to love that he could not endure to oppose him, and to have Freckles keep his trust and win alone meant more than any money the Boss might lose.

The following morning McLean brought the wheel, and Freckles took it to the trail to test it.  It was new, chainless, with as little as possible to catch in hurried riding, and in every way the best of its kind.  Freckles went skimming around the trail on it on a preliminary trip before he locked it in his case and started his minute examination of his line on foot.  He glanced around his room as he left it, and then stood staring.

On the moss before his prettiest seat lay the Angel’s hat.  In the excitement of yesterday all of them had forgotten it.  He went and picked it up, oh! so carefully, gazing at it with hungry eyes, but touching it only to carry it to his case, where he hung it on the shining handlebar of the new wheel and locked it among his treasures.  Then he went to the trail, with a new expression on his face and a strange throbbing in his heart.  He was not in the least afraid of anything that morning.  He felt he was the veriest Daniel, but all his lions seemed weak and harmless.

What Black Jack’s next move would be he could not imagine, but that there would be a move of some kind was certain.  The big bully was not a man to give up his purpose, or to have the hat swept from his head with a bullet and bear it meekly.  Moreover, Wessner would cling to his revenge with a Dutchman’s singleness of mind.