Distrust had enveloped him completely; even to the last lumberjack must the camp be cleaned, and the start made anew with a crew upon whom he could depend for honesty, at least.

How the rest of the system was to work out, he did not know.

How he was to sell the lumber which he intended milling, how he was to look after both the manufacturing and the disposing of his product was something beyond him, just at this moment.

But there would be a way; there must be.
Besides, there was Ba'tiste, heavy-shouldered, giant Ba'tiste, leaning over the side of the wagon, whistling and chiding the faithful old Golemar, and some way Houston felt that he would be an ally always.
The wagon had turned into the deeper forest now redolent with the heavy odor of the coniferous woods, and Ba'tiste straightened.

Soon he was talking and pointing,--now to describe the spruce and its short, stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter, longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the man at his side.