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 passed Tuesday. And Wednesday passed, fair and clear and peaceful overhead and in the forest. The last of the rafts were coming down the river without trouble or delay; the band-saw in the mill ate steadily through the good logs, the piles of lumber beside the track grew. There was no hint of trouble and the shaking that John Taylor's very soul had undergone in his scene with Marcia steadily subsided under three influences: the first was the fact that he had made peace with himself; the second, that he had won his father's trust and interest in his plan, so in a matter of days he would be able to tell Helen Foraker that the threat which Sim Burns held over her could be met with a laugh; and the third influence was the girl of the forest herself, whose charm and consequence grew hourly, bringing a strange combination of peace and restlessness.

But Wednesday evening Jim Harris' car rolled out toward Foraker's Folly again and picked up Tolman who, his turkey packed, stood beside the unused road waiting. Two hours later, the old cruiser sat in the telephone booth in the Commercial House, pouring his information over the wire into the ear of Luke Taylor, who clutched the receiver and strained forward, whose eyes glittered avidly as he listened and whose responses were short, profane and joyful.

Thursday afternoon John was in Pancake, billing out