A. M. Chisholm

“ McKenna was an excellent walking boss; MacNutt, Deever, and Tobin were good, practical foremen. But the concern lacked a strong, competent executive head who knew the logging business intimately, who could decide at once and finally the questions that must ever arise, and who could command the loyalty and unquestioning obedience of his men in the camps.
For there is a vast difference in the mind of a lumber jack between working for wages merely and working for an employer. For the one he will do a day's work ”

“ Just as great commanders have fired their troops with enthusiasm to the point of performing practical impossibilities through pride in them and in themselves and that magic, mystic thing called esprit du corps, so there have been employers who, in time of need, command the unswerving, uncomplaining loyalty of the shantyman. ”

“ Ackerman promised. “Now, I understand you have some timber near Kent's Wind River limits?”
“Buttin' onto 'em at one line,” Clancy replied. “That's why we tendered—to round out our holdin'.”
“Are you cutting it this winter?”
“We are.”
“Yourselves?”
“We jobbed it out.”
“That's too bad,” said Mr. Ackerman in disappointment. “I suppose the jobber is a good man?”
“A good man!” echoed John Clancy. “Is Rough Shan McCane a good man? If there's a worse one anywheres I never seen him.”
“Then why did you give him the stuff to cut?”
“Bekase he'll put in the logs. He can drive a crew, drunk or sober.” ”

“ But if you don't, I'll come over and take you apart.”
“Bring your own axe,” said MacNutt. “Now you get out o' here.”
This conversation, retailed at the camp by Devlin, Regan, and others, with such additions, mainly blasphemous, as the imagination of the individual narrator could suggest, sent MacNutt's stock booming. The lumber jack loves a fighter, and a man who could run three of McCane's crew out of the woods and bluff Rough Shan himself was one after their own hearts. Regan, himself a rough-and-tumble artist of considerable ability, voiced the sentiments of the better men. ”

“ Joe smiled enigmatically. “Well, Jack, she didn't exactly fall on my neck. I don't think I brightened up life for her to any extent.”
“Modest young man. Are you aware that you have worn a sunny smile ever since you returned? You can't bluff me, Joe. Why don't you own up?” ”

“ In the end they sat together on the log, cursing in two languages, and regarding the fragments of the broken bottle balefully. Chartrand rose and picked up a heavy club.
“Bagosh, I bus' up dat keg for sure!” he announced. But Hicks, whose wisdom was of the serpentine variety, demurred.
“Let the boys find it out for themselves,” he counselled. “If we give ourselves away we get the dirty laugh.”
Therefore there descended upon the camp a sudden sickness amounting to an epidemic; for the effects of MacNutt's concoction, though violent and immediate, were also far-reaching and enduring. ”

“ Visitors from McCane's camp came empty-handed, and Kent's men seldom went there. And yet there was liquor in the camp!
MacNutt could not account for it. He pondered the problem over many pipes. “They get it somewhere,” he said to himself. “For a week not a man has gone to McCane's and not a man of his has been here. There's only one answer. They've got a cache.” ”

“ For such men he will work without grumbling in all kinds of weather; he will take all manner of chances on land or water; he will fight for them at the drop of a hat; and, finally, he will throw his loyalty into each lick of axe and pull of saw, so that at the end of the season it may be measured in saw logs. ”

“ Once convinced that Ackerman represented some person or persons inimical to Kent and Crooks, he sought for a clue. One by one he went over Ackerman's business associates, including Garwood, and discarded them one by one. Then came the rumour of Garwood's acquisition of the Peninsular, an acquisition almost coincident with the rise in rates. Therefore, Locke argued, Garwood somehow benefited by it. But how? The railway man was not known to be interested in lumber. ”

“ Obviously some man or men who don't wish their identity known until they have accomplished a certain purpose. What is the purpose? So far it seems to be the buying out of existing lumber concerns. Ackerman approached Kent. For whom? Probably for this Central Lumber Company. Therefore Ackerman is one of those behind it. Ackerman's influence has been unfriendly to Kent in every way. Garwood no sooner acquired control of Peninsular stock than the rate on lumber was boosted. Ackerman is associated with him. ”