Garry hastily unstrapped his canteen and unloosing the stopper, poured some of the water on the man’s face. At the same time, Dick, showing a surprising amount of speed for one so undeniably stout, sprang to help Garry and unloosed the man’s shirt collar.

In a few moments the man had been revived, and when he had come to, Garry asked him if he had been shot or stabbed or wounded in any way.

“No,” replied the man weakly. “One of those jacks hit me on the head with a club, and I guess I just got groggy. I wonder if you boys could help me home, I live a few hundred yards down the road.”

“Indeed we will, you wait just a moment and we will improvise something to carry you on,” replied Phil.

“No, you won’t have to do that, just give me an arm to lean on; that will do very nicely.”

The boys did as he wished, and in a few minutes of easy walking they came to a neat little cottage, set back a few yards from the door with a number of flower beds scattered over the little lawn.

“Oh Grace,” called the man, and soon a pretty young woman came to the door. When she saw her husband, for so he proved to be, leaning on the arm of Garry she flew down the path and asked anxiously what was the matter.

“Nothing at all. Just wait till we get in the house and I will tell you all about it,” said the stranger. Then turning to the boys, he asked them to come in.

Anxious to hear what the cause of attack was, and why the man had wanted the rascals to escape, the trio accepted his invitation, and soon were sitting in the attractive little living room of the cottage.

“Now I suppose you boys who so kindly helped me out of a nasty hole would like to know what the whole business is about, wouldn’t you?” asked the owner of the cottage.

“We are rather curious,” answered Garry speaking for the others.

“My name is Howells, Arthur first name, generally called Art by my friends, and I am a timber scaler by occupation. I am scaling on the Boone cutting a few miles from here, and the chaps who attacked me were, until a few days ago, lumber jacks employed on the cutting. One morning I found them ‘spiking a tree,’ and forthwith sent a report to the office with a demand that they be fired. For that reason they met me tonight and attempted to get satisfaction by giving me a sound beating. Perhaps it would have been worse had you boys not come along so opportunely. I don’t think they would have murdered me, but could have easily put me out of commission so that I could not work, and that is one thing that I must do now of all times.”

“But why did you want us to let them escape. I should think you would have wanted them put safely under lock and key for such an unwarranted attack,” demanded Garry.

“Yes, Arthur,” chimed in his wife. “I would have had them arrested and given a good long sentence. They might have killed you or crippled you.”

“There’s just one reason. One of them was Dave Pingree, son of old Daddy Pingree who lives in the village near here. You know the son is a worthless scoundrel, but old Daddy has had so much trouble that I didn’t want to bring any more on him by having his son arrested, bad as he is, and as richly as he deserves to be jailed. The other one was a stranger to these parts, half breed Canadian by the name of LeBlanc, who picked up Pingree somewhere in the woods, and who has been his constant companion for the past few weeks, at least since the cutting operations of the Boone tract were started,” concluded Howells.

The three boys were so startled at the sound of the name LeBlanc that they jumped to their feet simultaneously and asked Howells to repeat the name.

“LeBlanc is the name. But why does that surprise you so?” queried Mr. Howells in surprise.

“What is his first name,” demanded Garry without answering the question.

“On the payroll he is listed as Baptiste.”

“We did not get a very good look at him in the dusk,” said Garry. “Would you mind describing him for us, please. This is a peculiar situation, and we will tell you about it after you have described the man,” answered Garry rather agitatedly.

“Why he is a swarthy chap about twenty-seven or eight, just about the same age as Pingree. He has black hair and mustache, and a jagged scar on one side of his neck, probably a knife wound from some lumber camp fight,” answered Howells.

Garry sank back with a sigh of relief.

“At any rate he is not the man we think he is. The scar and the age settle that, although the rest of the description fits him well enough to make him a brother to Jean LeBlanc, the one man we do want to run across in this neck of the woods,” replied Garry.

“Well, not that I want to raise any apprehension on your part, or tell you something that is displeasing to you, he is a brother of a man called Jean LeBlanc. I happen to know that this is so, for one night the lumberjacks were wrestling in front of the bunkhouse and boasting about their exploits, when this Baptiste came up and succeeded in throwing several of the men with a rather vicious hold. After he had thrown several of them he started boasting about his brother Jean, who had taught him the hold. I was standing at one side watching the wrestling, which is how I happened to overhear the matter. But why does the name of LeBlanc bother you so?” he asked in conclusion.

“That’s a rather long story,” answered Garry “and perhaps I had better start by telling you our names. These are my chums, Phil Durant and Dick Wallace, while my name is Garfield Boone, generally called Garry for short.”

“I don’t suppose you are any relation to the Mr. Boone who owns this tract where the summer logging is going on are you? Most people of that name in this state are somewhat related. In fact I am a second or third cousin of his myself,” said Howells with a smile.

“Yes, I happen to be his son,” answered Garry.

“Well, that is a coincidence. I suppose you are going on to take a look at the cutting aren’t you. This being your vacation time probably you are camping and travelling around a bit,” and Howells glanced at the knapsacks and rifles which the boys had stacked near the door in the hall and which could be plainly seen from the living room.

Dick was about to say something when he caught a meaning glance from Garry, which was also seen by Phil, and which the boys interpreted as a desire on the part of Garry to do any necessary explaining that might have to be done.

“Yes, we were in this vicinity and thought that we would like to see how the experiment in summer cutting was coming along,” he told Howells.

“That’s fine, then I shall see you around there a good deal as I am scaling. Of course coming from a lumbering family, I don’t need to tell you that scaling means measuring the timber that is cut. I also do quite a bit of timber cruising, which, as you know, means travelling through the cutting, marking the trees that are fit to be cut. Your father is very particular about his lumbering, and he doesn’t do as many of the other timber owners do, sweep clean through a tract of land, and make it worthless as timber land for years to come. His having certain trees marked for cutting means that every year there will be a growth suitable to cut and market and thus he is assured of a steady income from his tracts.”

“Perhaps if you are not too busy every day, you could show us something of the lumbering operations. Although as you say, I come from a ‘lumber family,’ I don’t know a great deal about timber cutting. About the only time I have ever been at the camps was at the spring drive, just to see the fight for the river, and neither of my chums know any more about it than I do. The first thing I would like to know is what did you mean by ‘spiking a tree’?” asked Garry.

“I don’t know that I can explain that to you without having you near a piece of big timber to demonstrate what I mean, but I will try and tell you as best I can. There is a certain way to cut a tree, or rather there is a certain place where one always starts to cut. This place is determined by the diameter of the tree. If the tree is two feet thick, the cutter measures up two feet from the ground to start his cut. Of course he does not measure it exactly, but long experience has taught him to estimate almost within an inch where to start. You know some trees are cut by axe; those are the smaller ones, but the bigger ones are sawed nearly all the way through, and then the axemen cut through just enough with their axes to cause the tree to break off and fall. ‘Spiking a tree’ means to take an estimate where the sawyers will start, and then drive several spikes in, using a nail set to drive them into the tree out of sight. The hole left will close up very rapidly, or a little dirt and moss can be stuck in so cleverly as to defy detection.”

“But what harm does that do? I suppose it might kill the tree, but what difference does that make, since it is going to be cut down directly?” quizzed Phil who was an interested listener.

“It doesn’t harm an old tree, but this is what it does, or rather figure it out for yourselves. What happens when the saw strikes three or four heavy spikes, set in the tree just in the path of the blade?” asked Howells.

The truth flashed over the three boys in an instant, and immediately they felt that they accomplished one purpose of their mission to the woods. They had discovered one of the reasons for the delay in the cutting. If several saws were to be spoiled that meant a delay in getting new ones.

“Now here are two other things that a spike in a tree will do. If spikes are driven in young trees, several of them, that is trees that won’t be cut for a few years, it means that it will cause the core or heart of the tree to rot or break the grain. Then when the tree is finally cut, a part of the lower trunk, or best part of the tree for lumber purposes, shatters just like so much glass when it falls. That’s one thing a spike will do. Now here’s another thing. Suppose that the mischief maker does not drive his spikes in the tree where the cut will be made, but climbs up twenty or thirty feet or so, and drives a dozen or two in different parts of the trunk of the tree. The tree trunk is cut safely and then it is drawn to the sawmill where it is sawed into planks. What happens when one of the big, expensive circular saws rips through a dozen spikes? It’s just goodbye to the saw and goodbye to a lot of money, and means a delay of several minutes until the saw can be replaced with another. And when you are cutting timber on a time contract with a penalty for every day’s delay overtime that you take, a half an hour or so lost through trouble with your sawmill means a big thing. Then there are two other dangers. One is that the saw will fly off and hurt the millmen when it hits the spikes, and the other is that it sometimes will cause serious defects in the entire machinery, so that instead of just a few minutes’ delay to change saws, you waste a day or maybe two in repairing the machinery. So that’s that.” Howells concluded his long description of all the trouble one little handful of spikes could do, and then he looked rather searchingly at the boys. Finally he seemed to have decided in his own mind to say what he was thinking and he looked at Garry.

“I wonder if your father has any idea that someone is trying to hurt his business? I don’t believe for an instant that those two scoundrels were driving those spikes just to make mischief. There is something deeper than that behind the whole business. There are scores of petty accidents occurring every week that all mean delay. Sometimes when the delays are totalled up they equal nearly half a day, and in one summer that means a long delay, a matter perhaps of two weeks. That two weeks is sufficient to spoil the contract and take all the profit away, but more than that, it means a loss of capital invested, for I happen to know that your father is cutting under a contract that provides a heavy penalty for failure to deliver goods as they are called for.”

Garry debated with himself for a few moments, wondering whether or not to take Howells into his confidence and enlist his help. He realized that Howells, if he were honest as he seemed, would be an invaluable aid in discovering what the trouble at the camp was. His knowledge of timbering was extensive, Garry could see that with half an eye, and Garry understood that he and his chums could see lots of things happening right under their noses and never guess the malicious significance of the happenings.

As he thought, Mrs. Howells settled the question for him. Reaching down to one of the shelves in the library table about which they were sitting, she produced an album.

“We are just old fashioned enough to have a family album,” she laughed. “I thought perhaps you would like to see a picture taken of your father a great many years ago,” and turning to one of the pages she showed Garry a picture that he recognized immediately. It showed his father with a sweet faced woman. “That is your father and Mr. Howells’ mother. She was his favorite cousin and she died a long time ago. This has always been in Arthur’s possession.”

Garry remembered having seen a counterpart of the picture at home a long time ago, and he decided that the timber sealer was not claiming any false relationship.

“I wonder how it is that we have never seen you before,” he asked, turning to Howells.

“Easy, we went west when I was a youngster, and it was only this spring that we came back to Maine. I did not say anything about my relationship, for I want to go on my own hook. I am a graduate of a forestry school, and I wanted to get actual experience in the woods, which was why I asked for and received the position of timber sealer. I like to stand in my own shoes, and so I said nothing about my relationship to the manager at the camp. Then, too, I need money, as I have a small interest in a little tract of young timber, and I am paying on it a little at a time. By the time it is completely paid for it will be ready to cut, and there will be a handsome profit on the investment,” he answered.

For a boy of his age, Garry was a pretty shrewd judge of character, and he had been sizing up young Howells while he was talking. So he made up his mind to take him into his confidence in a limited way, and so remarked:

“Yes, my father does know that there is something wrong at the camp, but he cannot put his finger on the spot where the trouble is. Every time he visits the camp things go along as smooth as clockwork, but it is impossible to put in all this time at this one thing when he has so many other irons in the fire. We thought that perhaps we could visit the camp for a while and find out what is wrong, and report to him so that he could remedy the trouble. But after hearing your story of the attempted spiking, I am beginning to think that the job is almost too much for us to handle. That would have been something I would never have dreamed of, and if the enemies in the camp, for enemies there must be, know a trick like that, they must have a bagfull of others of which we know nothing. So you see that in a way we are helpless, and I am going to ask that you aid us in this. I can promise for my father that in case your aid is instrumental in locating the trouble that it will not be forgotten. What do you say? Will you help us?”

“Indeed I will,” and Howells thrust forward his hand. “You can count on me to the last ditch!”

“Thanks,” said Garry as he took the proffered hand. “Now there is one thing to do, and that is to make sure that Baptiste LeBlanc is not in these parts any more, for wherever the name of LeBlanc gets hitched up with us there is trouble brewing!”