第20章

Dyer was no weakling.The problem presenting, he rose to the emergency.Without another word he pushed back his coffee cup and crossed the narrow open passage to the men's camp When he opened the door a silence fell.He could see dimly that the room was full of lounging and smoking lumbermen.As a matter of fact, not a man had stirred out that morning.This was more for the sake of giving Dyer a lesson than of actually shirking the work, for a lumber-jack is honest in giving his time when it is paid for.

"How's this, men!" cried Dyer sharply; "why aren't you out on the marsh?"No one answered for a minute.Then Baptiste:

"He mak' too tam cole for de marsh.Meester Radway he spik dat we kip off dat marsh w'en he mak' cole."Dyer knew that the precedent was indisputable.

"Why didn't you cut on eight then?" he asked, still in peremptory tones.

"Didn't have no one to show us where to begin," drawled a voice in the corner.

Dyer turned sharp on his heel and went out.

"Sore as a boil, ain't he!" commented old Jackson Hines with a chuckle.

In the cook camp Dyer was saying to the cook, "Well, anyway, we'll have dinner early and get a good start for this afternoon."The cook again laid down his paper."I'm tending to this job of cook," said he, "and I'm getting the meals on time.Dinner will be on time to-day not a minute early, and not a minute late."Then he resumed his perusal of the adventures of ladies to whom the illustrations accorded magnificent calf-development.

The crew worked on the marsh that afternoon, and the subsequent days of the week.They labored conscientiously but not zealously.

There is a deal of difference, and the lumber-jack's unaided conscience is likely to allow him a certain amount of conversation from the decks of skidways.The work moved slowly.At Christmas a number of the men "went out." Most of them were back again after four or five days, for, while men were not plenty, neither was work.

The equilibrium was nearly exact.

But the convivial souls had lost to Dyer the days of their debauch, and until their thirst for recuperative "Pain Killer," "Hinckley"and Jamaica Ginger was appeased, they were not much good.Instead of keeping up to fifty thousand a day, as Radway had figured was necessary, the scale would not have exceeded thirty.

Dyer saw all this plainly enough, but was not able to remedy it.

That was not entirely his fault.He did not dare give the delinquents their time, for he would not have known where to fill their places.This lay in Radway's experience.Dyer felt that responsibilities a little too great had been forced on him, which was partly true.In a few days the young man's facile conscience had covered all his shortcomings with the blanket excuse.He conceived that he had a grievance against Radway!

Chapter X

Radway returned to camp by the 6th of January.He went on snowshoes over the entire job; and then sat silently in the office smoking "Peerless" in his battered old pipe.Dyer watched him amusedly, secure in his grievance in case blame should be attached to him.

The jobber looked older.The lines of dry good-humor about his eyes had subtly changed to an expression of pathetic anxiety.He attached no blame to anybody, but rose the next morning at horn-blow, and the men found they had a new master over them.

And now the struggle with the wilderness came to grapples.Radway was as one possessed by a burning fever.He seemed everywhere at once, always helping with his own shoulder and arm, hurrying eagerly.

For once luck seemed with him.The marsh was cut over; the "eighty"on section eight was skidded without a break.The weather held cold and clear.

Now it became necessary to put the roads in shape for hauling.All winter the blacksmith, between his tasks of shoeing and mending, had occupied his time in fitting the iron-work on eight log-sleighs which the carpenter had hewed from solid sticks of timber.They were tremendous affairs, these sleighs, with runners six feet apart, and bunks nine feet in width for the reception of logs.The bunks were so connected by two loosely-coupled rods that, when emptied, they could be swung parallel with the road, so reducing the width of the sleigh.The carpenter had also built two immense tanks on runners, holding each some seventy barrels of water, and with holes so arranged in the bottom and rear that on the withdrawal of plugs the water would flood the entire width of the road.These sprinklers were filled by horse power.A chain, running through blocks attached to a solid upper framework, like the open belfry of an Italian monastery, dragged a barrel up a wooden track from the water hole to the opening in the sprinkler.When in action this formidable machine weighed nearly two tons and resembled a moving house.Other men had felled two big hemlocks, from which they had hewed beams for a V plow.

The V plow was now put in action.Six horses drew it down the road, each pair superintended by a driver.The machine was weighted down by a number of logs laid across the arms.Men guided it by levers, and by throwing their weight against the fans of the plow.It was a gay, animated scene this, full of the spirit of winter--the plodding, straining horses, the brilliantly dressed, struggling men, the sullen-yielding snow thrown to either side, the shouts, warnings, and commands.To right and left grew white banks of snow.Behind stretched a broad white path in which a scant inch hid the bare earth.

For some distance the way led along comparatively high ground.Then, skirting the edge of a lake, it plunged into a deep creek bottom between hills.Here, earlier in the year, eleven bridges had been constructed, each a labor of accuracy; and perhaps as many swampy places had been "corduroyed" by carpeting them with long parallel poles.Now the first difficulty began.