He turned, and swung up the axe while the big bushman swept his blade aloft, and Deringham watched them curiously.  Alton swayed with a steely suppleness from the waist, and the broad wedge of steel flashed about his head before it came down ringing.  The man had a few inches of springy wood which bent and heaved beneath him to stand upon, but the great blade descended exactly where the last chip had lain, and when it hissed aloft again that of the silent axeman dropped into the notch it made.  Deringham knew a little about a good many things, including sword-play, and he realized as he watched the whirl and flash of blades, precision of effort, and exactitude of time, that this was an example of man’s mastery over the trenchant steel.

Presently the man with the saw rose and touched his shoulder.  “I fancy we had better draw aside a little,” he said.  “She will come down in another minute just here.”

Now Deringham had seen trees wedged over and drawn down by ropes in England, and wondered a little when the man pointed to the spot where he was standing.

“If you don’t resent the question, how do you know?” he said.

The other man laughed a little.  “Harry told me, and he’s seldom more than a foot out,” he said.

There was a groaning of fibres as Deringham drew aside, but the two figures on the springy planks still smote and swung, until simultaneously they flung the axes down and, sprang.  Then the great fir quivered a little, toppled, lurched, and fell, and the hillside resounded to the thud it made.  It also smote the trembling soil just where the man with the saw had indicated.  Then Alton signed to his assistant, and strode away with the axe on his shoulder towards another tree.  The saw-sharpener laughed a little as he sat down again.

“Now you have had your say it would be better if you waited until after supper,” he said.  “You see, one thing at one time is quite enough for Harry, and he really isn’t in the least uncivil when you understand him.  Still, it’s no use trying to make him listen when he doesn’t want to.”

“That,” said Deringham dryly, “was always one of the characteristics of his family.  You are presumably an Englishman?”

The other man laughed a little.  “Yes,” he said, “I’m Charles Seaforth, better known to the boys here as the Honourable Charley, though I have no especial right to the title, and am fortunate in holding a small share in the Somasco ranch, which I owe to my partner’s generosity.”

“Do I understand that he gave it you?” said Deringham.

Seaforth nodded.  “You would be near the mark if you came to that conclusion.”

“And is Mr. Alton in the habit of making similar presents?” said Deringham.

Seaforth glanced towards the sinewy figure with the glinting axe, and smiled again.  “That,” he said quietly, “is one of the most generous men in the Dominion of Canada, but I should not care to be the man who attempted to take advantage of him.”