outskirts of Grand Rapids. With three partners, he organized a lumber
company. His work was to purchase, fell, and ship the timber to the
mills. Marshall managed the milling process and passed the lumber to the
factory. From the lumber, Barthol made beautiful and useful furniture,
which Uptegrove scattered all over the world from a big wholesale house.
Of the thousands who saw their faces reflected on the polished surfaces
of that furniture and found comfort in its use, few there were to whom
it suggested mighty forests and trackless swamps, and the man, big
of soul and body, who cut his way through them, and with the eye of
experience doomed the proud trees that were now entering the homes of
civilization for service.

When McLean turned from his finished report, he faced a young man,
yet under twenty, tall, spare, heavily framed, closely freckled, and
red-haired, with a homely Irish face, but in the steady gray eyes,
straightly meeting his searching ones of blue, there was unswerving
candor and the appearance of longing not to be ignored. He was dressed
in the roughest of farm clothing, and seemed tired to the point of
falling.

"You are looking for work?" questioned McLean.

"Yis," answered Freckles.

"I am very sorry," said the Boss with genuine sympathy in his every
tone, "but there is only one man I want at present--a hardy, big fellow
with a stout heart and a strong body. I hoped that you would do, but I
am afraid you are too young and scarcely strong enough."

Freckles stood, hat in hand, watching McLean.