第67章

In the center of the room stood a big round table over which glowed two hanging lamps.The table was littered with papers and magazines.

Home life was still further suggested by a canary bird in a gilt cage, a sleepy cat, and two pots of red geraniums.Thorpe had further imported a washerwoman who dwelt in a separate little cabin under the hill.She washed the men's belongings at twenty-five cents a week, which amount Thorpe deducted from each man's wages, whether he had the washing done or not.This encouraged cleanliness.Phil scrubbed out every day, while the men were in the woods.

Such was Thorpe's famous Camp One in the days of its splendor.Old woodsmen will still tell you about it, with a longing reminiscent glimmer in the corners of their eyes as they recall its glories and the men who worked in it.To have "put in" a winter in Camp One was the mark of a master; and the ambition of every raw recruit to the forest.Probably Thorpe's name is remembered to-day more on account of the intrepid, skillful, loyal men his strange genius gathered about it, than for the herculean feat of having carved a great fortune from the wilderness in but five years' time.

But Camp One was a privilege.A man entered it only after having proved himself; he remained in it only as long as his efficiency deserved the honor.Its members were invariably recruited from one of the other four camps; never from applicants who had not been in Thorpe's employ.A raw man was sent to Scotty, or Jack Hyland, or Radway, or Kerlie.There he was given a job, if he happened to suit, and men were needed.By and by, perhaps, when a member of Camp One fell sick or was given his time, Tim Shearer would send word to one of the other five that he needed an axman or a sawyer, or a loader, or teamster, as the case might be.The best man in the other camps was sent up.

So Shearer was foreman of a picked crew.Probably no finer body of men was ever gathered at one camp.In them one could study at his best the American pioneer.It was said at that time that you had never seen logging done as it should be until you had visited Thorpe's Camp One on the Ossawinamakee.

Of these men Thorpe demanded one thing--success.He tried never to ask of them anything he did not believe to be thoroughly possible;but he expected always that in some manner, by hook or crook, they would carry the affair through.No matter how good the excuse, it was never accepted.Accidents would happen, there as elsewhere; a way to arrive in spite of them always exists, if only a man is willing to use his wits, unflagging energy, and time.Bad luck is a reality; but much of what is called bad luck is nothing but a want of careful foresight, and Thorpe could better afford to be harsh occasionally to the genuine for the sake of eliminating the false.

If a man failed, he left Camp One.

The procedure was very simple.Thorpe never explained his reasons even to Shearer.

"Ask Tom to step in a moment," he requested of the latter.

"Tom," he said to that individual, "I think I can use you better at Four.Report to Kerlie there."And strangely enough, few even of these proud and independent men ever asked for their time, or preferred to quit rather than to work up again to the glories of their prize camp.

For while new recruits were never accepted at Camp One, neither was a man ever discharged there.He was merely transferred to one of the other foremen.

It is necessary to be thus minute in order that the reader may understand exactly the class of men Thorpe had about his immediate person.Some of them had the reputation of being the hardest citizens in three States, others were mild as turtle doves.They were all pioneers.They had the independence, the unabashed eye, the insubordination even, of the man who has drawn his intellectual and moral nourishment at the breast of a wild nature.They were afraid of nothing alive.From no one, were he chore-boy or president, would they take a single word--with the exception always of Tim Shearer and Thorpe.

The former they respected because in their picturesque guild he was a master craftsman.The latter they adored and quoted and fought for in distant saloons, because he represented to them their own ideal, what they would be if freed from the heavy gyves of vice and executive incapacity that weighed them down.

And they were loyal.It was a point of honor with them to stay "until the last dog was hung." He who deserted in the hour of need was not only a renegade, but a fool.For he thus earned a magnificent licking if ever he ran up against a member of the "Fighting Forty." A band of soldiers they were, ready to attempt anything their commander ordered, devoted, enthusiastically admiring.

And, it must be confessed, they were also somewhat on the order of a band of pirates.Marquette thought so each spring after the drive, when, hat-tilted, they surged swearing and shouting down to Denny Hogan's saloon.Denny had to buy new fixtures when they went away; but it was worth it.

Proud! it was no name for it.Boast! the fame of Camp One spread abroad over the land, and was believed in to about twenty per cent of the anecdotes detailed of it--which was near enough the actual truth.Anecdotes disbelieved, the class of men from it would have given it a reputation.The latter was varied enough, in truth.

Some people thought Camp One must be a sort of hell-hole of roaring, fighting devils.Others sighed and made rapid calculations of the number of logs they could put in, if only they could get hold of help like that.

Thorpe himself, of course, made his headquarters at Camp One.

Thence he visited at least once a week all the other camps, inspecting the minutest details, not only of the work, but of the everyday life.For this purpose he maintained a light box sleigh and pair of bays, though often, when the snow became deep, he was forced to snowshoes.

During the five years he had never crossed the Straits of Mackinaw.