But Mr. Marlin was far too wise to put Charley in such a position without adequate training.  Personally, therefore, he began to prepare him for the work.  Accompanied by Charley, he went entirely over the operations in Lumley’s territory.  He carried a duplicate of the contract under which the wood was being cut.  Together they discussed every phase of the contract, and the forester showed Charley how each step in the operation should be carried out; how the trees should be selected and marked, how they should be felled and trimmed, how the brush should be disposed of, and finally how the timber should be scaled at the skidways along the highway, whence the timber was being carted away in huge trucks.

Then he went with Charley into the latter’s own district and started him at the task of selecting and marking the trees for cutting.  These had to be greater than ten inches in diameter, breast-high, and had to be marked.  Crooked trees and wolf trees whose unduly large tops harmed lower growths were also to be cut.  The trees were marked by blazing them at the butt and breast-high and striking the blazes with a heavy hammer that left the imprint of the state’s marker on the wood.  Merely to select and mark all the trees to be cut was a considerable task, but Charley tried to do this and carry on his other work as well.  It meant that he worked from the earliest possible moment in the morning until he could no longer see at night.  Day after day he worked at his tasks, content to eat cold meals that Mrs. Lumley packed for him, and reaching home so weary that he tumbled into bed and was asleep the instant he had telephoned his daily report to his chief.

Darkness had already fallen, one night, when Charley drew near the Lumley habitation.  To his surprise he saw a light up-stairs in Lumley’s room.  As he drew nearer, he could faintly discern the forms of two men in the chamber.  Involuntarily he stopped to scrutinize the figures.  At the same instant Lumley’s dogs began to bark, as they always did when any one approached.  Quick as a flash the curtain of the chamber window was pulled down.  But in that brief instant Charley was sure he recognized the man with Lumley.  It was Bill Collins.

Charley was startled completely out of his weariness.  A moment later he got a second shock.  Like a flash it came to him where he had first seen Lumley.  He had been with Collins the day the latter had appeared in the forest.  Collins had attracted Charley’s attention so strongly that he had hardly noticed Collins’ companion.  Yet now he was certain he was right.  He was certain that he was not mistaken.

From the beginning he had believed that he had seen Lumley somewhere before the forester introduced Lumley to him.  Now it came to him where he had first seen Lumley.  Lumley was the man he and Lew had seen with Bill Collins.

Still another surprise awaited Charley.  When he entered the house Lumley was seated at the table opposite a stranger, and the stranger was not Bill Collins.  But he resembled Collins so much that Charley did not wonder that, at such a distance, he had made the mistake of thinking the man was Collins.