The chopper dropped the axe.
“Now, take off your clothes,” said Collins. The chopper began to strip. But when he had pulled off his shirt, an abrupt change came over him. “Say, what’s the matter with you, eh? What’s the matter with you?” he shouted.
His face was aflame, his eyes glistened; he doubled up his fists. Instantly the fists loosened and sprang high over his head as with a smart tap the muzzle of Collins’s rifle settled against his stomach. “Oh, all right, all right,” he said in subdued tone; “all right, all right, don’t shoot.” Then slowly, as if in an aside directed to the trees: “For God’s sake!”
A moment later Collins crashed out through the brush clad in the garments of a workingman, leaving the wood-chopper in the clearing, naked before a striped huddle at which he gazed with indecision and disgust.
These short apparitions, Collins found, had been sufficient to his plan. The chase was pressing up northward. Once, throwing himself into the ditch beside the county road, he let pass
