The sweat of terror stood on the man’s high forehead, and he wiped it away.

Bat flung a clenched fist down upon the tree stump.

“You’re wrong, Les.  You’re plumb wrong.  If it means murder I swear before God Hellbeam’ll never lay hands on you.  Hellbeam?  Gee!  Let him set his nose north of ‘fifty’ and I’ll promise him a welcome so hot that’ll leave hell like a glacier.  As for his darn agents?  Why, say, I want to feel sorry for ’em ’fore they start.  Idepski’s hating himself right—­”

“I know,” cried Standing impatiently.  “I know it all.  Everything you’ve said you mean, but—­it won’t save me.  But we can leave all that.  There’s the other things.  Why should I go on living here, working, slaving, haunted by the terror of Hellbeam?  With my boy, my wife, to fight for it was worth all the agony.  But without them—­why?  Why in the name of sanity should I go on?  To beat the Skandinavians out of Canada’s trade, and claim it all for a country that doesn’t care a curse?  To build up a great name that in the end must be dragged in the mire of public estimation?  Not on your life, Bat.  No, no.  I’m going to cut adrift.  I’m going to quit.  I’m going to lose myself in these forests, and live the remaining years of my life free to run to earth at the first shot of the hunter’s gun.  It’s all that’s left me—­as I see it.”

“And all this?” Bat said, reaching out one great hand in the direction of the Cove.  “An’ that school gal ’way down at Abercrombie, learning her knitting, an’ letters, an’ crying her dandy eyes out for the mother who had to leave her there when she passed over to you?  Say, Les, you best go on.  Jest go right on an’ I’ll say my piece after.”

Standing sat up.  A deep earnestness was in the dark eyes that looked fearlessly into Bat’s.  He took the other at his word and went on.  He had nothing to conceal.

“The mill?  Why, I want to pass it over to your care, Bat,” he said, permitting one swift regretful glance in the direction of the grey waters below them.  Then he spoke almost feverishly.  “Here’s the proposition.  I’m going to hand you full powers—­through Charles Nisson.  You’ll run this thing on the lines laid down.  If you fancy carrying on the original proposition of extension, well and good.  If not, just carry on and leave the rest for—­later.  You’ll be manager for me through Nisson.  I shan’t remove one cent of capital.  I don’t want Hellbeam’s money beyond the barest grub stake.  It’ll remain under Nisson’s guardianship for your use in running this mill.  You’ll simply satisfy Nisson.  For the rest I shan’t interfere.  You’re drawing a big salary now.  Well, seeing I go out of the work, that salary will be doubled.  That’s for the immediate.  Then there’s the future.  I’ve a notion.  Maybe it’s a crazy notion.  But it’s mine and I mean to test it.  Here.  We reckon to build up this enterprise for one great, big purpose.  It was my dream to break the Skandinavian ring governing the groundwood