A. M. Chisholm

“ Joe's sense of fair play was outraged. He caught the nearest man by the collar and slung him back twenty feet.
“Quit it!” he shouted. “Haggarty! Chartrand! White! Let them alone, do you hear me?” In his anger he rose to heights of unsuspected eloquence and his words cut like whips. The men disentangled before his voice and hands. At the bottom Haggarty and Rough Shan, locked in a deadly grip, fought like bulldogs, each trying for room to apply the knee to the other's stomach.
HAGGARTY AND ROUGH SHAN, LOCKED IN A DEADLY GRIP, FOUGHT LIKE BULLDOGS
“Pull 'em apart!” ”

“ Rough Shan took a fierce step forward. Joe stood his ground and the other paused.
“Our logs is here,” he exclaimed. “These ends proves it. I'll not match them, nor try to. I give ye an hour to deliver a full load of logs, average twelve-inch tops, at our skidways.”
“Not a log, unless you prove ownership of it, and then you do your own delivering,” said Joe. “Pshaw! McCane, what's the use? You can't bluff me. Let your employers go to law if they want to.”
“Law!” cried Rough Shan. “We run our own law in these woods, young felly. I give ye fair warnin'!”
“You make me tired,” Joe retorted. ”

“ He perceived, too, that the matter of the logs was a tactical mistake of the latter's. For, if Rough Shan had confined his activities to supplying the men with whiskey and fomenting discontent, MacNutt would have been forced to discharge half of them, and good hands were scarce. Thus the camp would have been practically crippled. But an accusation of log stealing would weld the men solidly together for the honour of their employer.
Haggarty, the iron-fisted cant-hook man, who had drawn Kent pay for years, took up the matter in the bunk-house that night. ”

“ If you want a row you can have it, now or any old time. You won't run anybody out of the woods. As for the logs, you know what MacNutt told you. Still, if you can prove ownership of any, satisfactorily to me, you may haul them back with the team you hauled them in with. But, mind you, this is the last time. The trick is stale, and you mustn't play it again.”
“I'll find them an' then I'll talk to you,” said Rough Shan with contempt. “Come on, Mike.” He made for the nearest skidway.
“You two men go along and tell the boys to let him look till he's tired,” said Joe to Haggarty and Jackson. ”

“ The darkness was lifting when the crew left camp for the woods. Joe and the foreman tramped behind. There was little speech. However excellent early rising may be theoretically it does not sweeten the temper, especially in mid-winter. There was a notable absence of laughter, of jest, even of ordinarily civil conversation. Almost every man bent his energies to the consumption of tobacco. ”

“ MacNutt was silent from habit. A foreman cannot mingle socially with his men to any extent and preserve his authority. Hence his life is lonely and loneliness begets silence. He answered questions with clear brevity, but did not make conversation. ”

“ This morning the logs is gone.”
“What have I got to do with that?” asked MacNutt.
“That's what I've come to find out,” retorted McCane. “Our teamsters never touched them. Logs don't get away by themselves.”
MacNutt frowned at him. “If you think we took your logs there's our skidways, and the road is open to the river. Take a look for yourself.”
McCane and his men went to the nearest skidway and examined the logs. They passed on to another, and MacNutt thought it advisable to follow. At the second skidway one of the sawyers slapped a stick of timber. ”

“ But he was by no means absolutely ignorant, for, like the average young American, he had spent considerable time in the woods, which involves a more or less intimate acquaintance with the axe, and he had also the average American's aptitude for tools and constructive work of any kind. ”