“That’s all right,” he said.  “We’re fixed for the scrap.  Just come right over.”

It was this last act that Bat contemplated now.  And he hated it.  He knew well enough he must go.  There was no sane alternative.  The power station was the prepared fortress.  It had everything in it that must be guarded and fought for.  But his fierce regret was none the less for the knowledge.

Then, too, his regret was for something else.  It was at the absence of Bull Sternford.  This was no expression of weakness.  It was simply he desired the man’s companionship.  They had worked together.  They had planned and built together.  And, now, in the moment of battle, it seemed to him they should still be together.

But he knew that was impossible.  When Bull’s call to the forest had come in the night there had been no opportunity for explanation.  He, Bat, had been engaged down at the mill, and the other had been rushed in his preparations.  Bull had made his farewell to him in a great hurry.  He had outlined briefly the thing happening in the forests.  That had been all.  That and a few words on the affairs of the mill.

How the news had reached Bull, and who the messenger, had never transpired between them.  Perhaps Bull had forgotten to mention it.  Perhaps, in the hurry of it all, Bat had forgotten to ask.  Perhaps, even, the messenger himself had impressed secrecy for his visit, which had been timed for the dead of night.  At any rate Bat knew none of these things, and was in no way concerned for them.  All he was concerned for was the absence of the man who was something more to him than a mere partner.

Thinking of him now Bat remembered the other’s final words, and the memory stirred him deeply.

“Remember, old friend,” he had said, “young Ray Birchall will be over from England at the break of winter.  On his report to his people depends the whole thing we’ve built up.  We’ve got to have these mills running full when that boy gets around.  There’s not a darn thing else matters.”

It was the final spur.  The mills running full.  Bat spat out his chew, and turned and locked the door behind him.  Then he moved away hurriedly, gazing straight in front of him as though he dared not even think of the place he was leaving.

* * * * *

On the foreshore of the Cove, out towards the guarding headlands, half a hundred fires were burning.  They were immense beacon fires of monstrous proportions.  Belching columns of smoke clouded the whole region till the water-front looked to be in the grip of a forest fire.

Men, and women, and children were gathered about them.  They were basking in a moderation of temperature such as their homes could no longer afford them.  But it was a curious, silent gathering, indifferent to everything but the feeding of the fires on which they felt their very existence depended.

The forests which supplied the fuel came down to the edge of the now idle trolley track.  Already acres and acres had been felled to feed the insatiable fires.  The woodland decimated, and the devastation was going on in every direction.