“It drives me wild to have a man sputter at me.  I’m an electrical and civil engineer, I tell you, and my two years of travel have been spent studying the installation and construction of big plants abroad.”  He commenced to chuckle softly.  “I’ve known for years that our sawmill was a debilitated old coffee-grinder and would have to be rebuilt, so I wanted to know how to rebuild it.  And I’ve known for years that some day I might have to build a logging railroad—­”

“My dear boy!  And you’ve got your degree?”

“Partner, I have a string of letters after my name like the tail of a comet.”

“You comfort me,” the old man answered simply.  “I have reproached myself with the thought that I reared you with the sole thought of making a lumberman out of you—­and when I saw your lumber business slipping through my fingers—­”

“You were sorry I didn’t have a profession to fall back on, eh?  Or were you fearful lest you had raised the usual rich man’s son?  If the latter, you did not compliment me, pal.  I’ve never forgotten how hard you always strove to impress me with a sense of the exact weight of my responsibility as your successor.”

“How big are you now?” his father queried suddenly.

“Well, sir,” Bryce answered, for his father’s pleasure putting aside his normal modesty, “I’m six feet two inches tall, and I weigh two hundred pounds in the pink of condition.  I have a forty-eight-inch chest, with five and a half inches chest-expansion, and a reach as long as a gorilla’s.  My underpinning is good, too; I’m not one of these fellows with spidery legs and a barrel-chest.  I can do a hundred yards in ten seconds; I’m no slouch of a swimmer; and at Princeton they say I made football history.  And in spite of it all, I haven’t an athletic heart.”

“That is very encouraging, my boy—­very.  Ever do any boxing?” “Quite a little.  I’m fairly up in the manly art of self-defence.”

“That’s good.  And I suppose you did some wrestling at your college gymnasium, did you not?”

“Naturally.  I went in for everything my big carcass could stand.”

The old man wagged his head approvingly, and they had reached the gate of the Cardigan home before he spoke again.  “There’s a big buck woods-boss up in Pennington’s camp,” he remarked irrelevantly.  “He’s a French Canadian imported from northern Michigan by Colonel Pennington.  I dare say he’s the only man in this country who measures up to you physically.  He can fight with his fists and wrestle right cleverly, I’m told.  His name is Jules Rondeau, and he’s top dog among the lumberjacks.  They say he’s the strongest man in the county.”  He unlatched the gate.  “Folks used to say that about me once,” he continued wistfully.  “Ah, if I could have my eyes to see you meet Jules Rondeau!”

The front portal of the quaint old Cardigan residence opened, and a silver-haired lady came out on the porch and hailed Bryce.  She was Mrs. Tully, John Cardigan’s old housekeeper, and almost a mother to Bryce.  “Oh, here’s my boy!” she cried, and a moment later found herself encircled by Bryce’s arms and saluted with a hearty kiss.