"There's a good deal in this world in letting a man place his own self where he belongs," remarked Lane, with calm conviction. "I've let you prove yourself a liar."
He turned and went into the cabin and back up the stairs to the roof, picking up a huge telescope as he went. Something in the valley seemed to have attracted his attention. MacLeod followed, his face red, oaths clucking in his throat.
In the nearer middle ground of the great plat of country below Patch Dam heath was set into the green of the forest like a medallion of rusty tin. To the west of it smoke began to puff above the tree-tops.
"On Misery," mumbled Lane, his long arms steadying his instrument. Then, with the caution of a man of method, he went into the scuttle-hole and secured his range-finder.
"What's the good of tinker-fuddlin' with that thing?" demanded MacLeod; "it's on Misery, as you said."
"Two hundred and fifty-nine degrees," muttered the fire-scout, booking the figures in his dog's-eared diary.
"Say, about that fire, Mr. Lane," blurted MacLeod, nervously. "I'm up here to-day by Mr. Britt's orders to tell you not to report it. It's on Misery Gore, and he's there looking after it, and it ain't goin' to be worth while to report. I know all about it, and that's the truth."
Lane, without bestowing a glance on the speaker, was setting up his heliograph tripod. At the young man's last words he grunted over his shoulder:
"So it was a peavy-stick! But they told me his name was Wade."
"Now you look here," stormed the timber baron's boss, "you can slur all you want to about my lyin', but I tell you, Lane, this is straight goods. You report that fire, after the orders you've got from Britt, and you'll lose your job. I know what I'm talkin' about."
Lane kneeled, his thin trousers hanging over his slender shanks like cloth over broomsticks. MacLeod stifled an inclination to take him in one hand and snap him like a whip-lash. The old man was peering through the centre hole in the sun-mirror, bringing his disks into alignment.
"Britt has got orders from the court, and he's there to put the Skeets and Bushees out and torch off their shacks. That's all there is to that fire, Lane, and Britt don't want a stir and hoorah made about it. He told me to tell you that. He says the cussed newspapers get a word here and a word there, and they're always ready to string out a lot of lies about King Spruce and wild-landers, and how they abuse settlers, and all that rot--and it hurts prominent men, like Mr. Britt and his associates, because folks get wrong ideas from the papers. Now you know that! Don't report that fire, Lane."