“If ye know what women think, lad, ye’re the wisest man God has yet made, an’ as such I’m proud to know ye.”

“It is no time to joke,” answered Hedin bitterly.  “That’s a thing I’ve never been able to fathom, why you always joke in the face of a serious situation, and then turn around and raise hell over some trivial matter that don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

McNabb grinned.  “Do I?” he asked.  “Well, maybe ye’re right.  But listen, lad, I know ye’ve regard for me, an’ I’m askin’ as a personal favor that ye hold off a bit with your denouncement of yon Wentworth.  Just play the game as ye’ve been playin’ it.  Keep on bein’ Sven Larsen, the factor’s clerk, heavy of wit, an’ able with fool questions.  Ye’ve a fine faculty for actin’; for all durin’ supper the lass never suspected ye.  Keep it up for a while; it won’t be for long.”

“But what’s the good of it?  We know as much as we’ll ever know.  Man, do you know what you’re asking?  Loving Jean as I love her, I must stand about and play the fool, while that damned thief basks in her favor under my very eyes!  If there were a good reason, it would be different.  But Wentworth and Orcutt can go no farther; they’re done——­”

“Aye, but they’re not done,” interrupted McNabb.  “Ye’ll be knowin’ me well enough to know I always have a reason for the things that I do.  It’s a hard thing I’m askin’ of ye, an’ in this case I’ll show ye the reason, though ’tis not my habit.  D’ye mind I told ye that the Eureka material was rollin’ down the tote-road by the truck load?  Thousands of dollars worth of it every day is bein’ delivered at the mill site.  Why?  Because for some reason Orcutt has not yet found out that he does not own the timber.  The minute he does find out, not another pound will be delivered.”

“You mean——?”

“I mean that portland cement, an’ the reinforcin’ steel, an’ plate an’ whatever else goes into the construction of a paper mill is bein’ set down on the Shamattawa, one hundred miles from a railway at Orcutt’s expense.  And that every ton of it is stuff that won’t pay its way out of the woods.  The freight an’ the haulin’ one way doubles the cost.  An’ even if he tried to take it out, he’d have a hundred miles of tote-road to build.  Eureka freight travels only one way on McNabb’s tote-road—­an’ that way is in!”

Hedin stared at the man in astonishment.  “And you can buy it at your own figure!” he cried.  “Why, you can prevent even his empty trucks from going back.  God, man, it will ruin Orcutt!”

“’Tis his own doin’s,” answered the man. “’Twill serve him right.  He should have ‘tended to his bankin’ instead of pickin’ on poor old John McNabb, that should be back of his counter sellin’ thread, as he told me himself.  Ten cents on the dollar he offered for my tote-road.”

“I’ll do it!” exclaimed Hedin.  “It will be hard, but it will be worth it, to see that crook get what’s coming to him.  And then I’m going away.  Murchison will give me a letter, and I’ll strike the Company for a job.”