A. M. Chisholm

“ The sun was barely risen when the first logs of the big drive swung down leisurely, their pace accelerating as the faster current above the falls gripped them. This vanguard was run into Kent’s booms, and the rivermen cheered as they caught sight of the young boss, and cheered again for William Crooks and his daughter who stood beside him. They ran gaily along the slippery brown logs and danced lightly across their backs, pushing, pulling, prodding, guiding and restraining, and the booms filled magically. ”

“ Men sighed as they lifted axes for the first blow—such a sigh as one gives when stooping to resume a burden. With the fall of the blow, and the shock of it running up the helve through arms and shoulders, they were completely awake. What remained of the dull, aimless resentment was directed at the timber that ringed them around—the timber that represented at once a livelihood and an unending toil.
Joe followed MacNutt, keenly observant. ”

“ He may be driven like a mule, cursed in language for which he would kill any one else, fed poorly and housed worse; but if the essential thing is possessed by the boss the lumber jack will not grumble overmuch nor ask for his time.
And this essential is mysterious and hard to define. Much as the shantyman admires physical prowess, it is not a prime requisite. But courage is, and so is firmness in dealing with any situation. The boss must never recede from a position once taken. He may listen to advice, but he must decide for himself and by himself. ”

“ Nothing arose to put the young boss’s courage to a test. All went merry as a marriage bell, and the quantity of logs pouring down to the banking grounds attested the quality of the work done. Then came trouble out of a comparatively clear sky.
One day Joe was bossing the job, MacNutt being in camp. His bossing, truth to tell, lay more in the moral effect of his presence than in issuing orders or giving instruction. Having the good sense to recognize his present limitations, he let the men alone. The air was soft with a promise of snow, and he lit his pipe and sauntered up the logging road. ”

“ Nothing had been gained.
“It’d take a carload of powder to root her out,” said Tobin in disgust. “We’ll just have to dig into her with the peavies, Dinny, and trust to luck.”
So they dug with the peavies for three days, and nothing happened. Occasionally there would be a quiver and a long, shuddering groan as if a monster were awaking from sleep; and once a series of startling, premonitory cracks and a sharp movement set the jam crew zig-zagging for shore. ”

“ This time one boat was sufficient to tow all the day’s take. Jack and Joe sat on the foredeck in the dusk, listening to the soft lap of water alongside.
“I can’t tell you what I felt when I heard the drive had broken, Joe,” said she. “It seemed so safe before, and now—but you’ll make it, Joe, I know you will!”
“I’ll make it or bust—and that’s no figure of speech,” he told her grimly. “Those twenty men your father has lent me will just about turn the scale. The boys are working like demons—each man doing the work of two; but it depends on the weather more than on anything else. ”

“ The ghost of a smile on MacNutt’s face decided for him. He tumbled out, soused his head in water, pulled on his heavy clothes, high German socks, and moccasins, and in five minutes stood, a very solid, good-looking young lumber jack with a very healthy appetite for breakfast.
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. ”

“ I thought shanty songs were more cheerful.”
“Some of ’em are cheerful enough,” said Crooks, winking at Joe, who had the grace to blush.
“But most describe the lingering deaths of true lovers,” said Jack. “A shantyman requires sentiment or murder, and preferably both, in his music. Dad, sing us ‘The Fate of Lovely May.’”
“I will not,” Crooks refused. “It has five hundred verses, more or less. I’m going to bed. You can lose sleep if you want to.”
“Don’t take that hint, Joe,” laughed Jack. “You’re not company.”
“Hint nothing,” said Crooks. “Jack knows it wasn’t.” ”

“ Joe asked.
“Behind it—how? You don’t think I’m putting up a job to freeze you out, do you?”
“No, not that. But are you making this proposition for Jack’s sake? I mean, do you think I’d make a mess of my business if I ran it alone? Because if that’s really the reason I’d like to show you.”
“If I thought you couldn’t run your own business I wouldn’t want your help to run mine,” Crooks replied. “Mind you, I consider myself able to give you a few pointers. You’ve a lot to learn, but you’re one of the young fellows who will learn. Some can’t; others won’t. ”

“ Kindly time had partially concealed the weird creation of Dorsey’s brain by trees and creepers; here and there an added veranda or bow window was offered in mitigation of the original crime; but its stark, ungraceful outline remained a continual offence to the eye. That was outside. Inside it was different. The rooms were big and airy and well lighted. There was an abundance of open fireplaces, as became the residence of a man whose life had been spent in devastating forests, and the furniture and furnishings were practical and comfortable, for Bill Crooks hated “frills.” ”

“ From her childhood she had spent days and even weeks in her father’s camps, meeting the big, rough shantymen who one and all adored her; getting glimpses of their life, but only touching the outer shell of it; seeing them against a background of cheerful labour, ringing axes, song and jest, as real and yet as unreal as a stage setting—a background which in her eyes surrounded them with the elements of romance. ”

“ It is safe to say that never had the church, to whose support old Bill Crooks contributed more often than he attended it, held as motley a gathering as on the morning of the wedding of his daughter and Joe Kent. Big, brown men, painfully shaven, in aggressively new garments which cramped their strong muscles and rendered them awkward and ill at ease, occupied seats beside the members of Falls City’s leading families, who eyed the intruders askance. And here and there, also ill at ease, were old men and women, dependents of William Crooks and friends of his daughter, whom they loved. ”

“ The camp was buzzing like a hornet’s nest. Men were catching up ropes, chains, peavies, and pike poles and hurrying off into the darkness. Joe, Tobin, and McKenna followed.
As they passed the head of the channel where Deever and half a dozen men were stationed the foreman called to them:
“I’ve got something to show you, Mr. Kent. It won’t take five minutes.”
He led the way over the logs and down the cribwork and booming of the channel, and stopped: “One end of the boom swung down here when she went out,” he said, and lowered his lantern. “Look at that!” ”

“ Each man of you has done the work of a dozen, and I want you to know that I’m grateful. I can’t pay you in money, but I want to say that I’m the friend of each man here, and any time one of you wants anything from me all he has to do is to ask for it. I hope to have you all with me next year, and I’ll saw every log we cut in my own mills. Just one thing more, and that’s an important one.” He took Jack’s hand and she rose blushing and laughing while the men cheered madly. “Miss Crooks will be Mrs. Kent in a few weeks, boys, and we ask you all to the wedding.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The roar that went up from them was heard even at the rollways. They charged home. A wave of fighting shantymen surged over Joe, and he raised himself and staggered up as he had often done from the bottom of a scrimmage. Big Cooley raged in the van of the fight, spouting blasphemies and swinging his enormous fists right and left. Beside him Haggarty and Regan found vent for their hatred of the other camp. The fight spread out into a number of single combats, and it was then that Kent’s picked fighters proved their quality. Man after man of McCane’s gang had enough, quit, and ran. ”

“ Jackson and Ward sprang forward as one man.
“You keep out o’ this,” said Rough Shan. “This is log stealin’, and a matter for your boss, if he’s man enough to talk to me face.”
“Man enough? Come over here an’ say we stole yer logs, ye dirty——” Haggarty’s language became lurid. He was an iron-fisted old-timer and hated McCane.
MacNutt, when he saw Haggarty drop his cant-hook and jump, ran across to the skids. So did other men at hand. A ring of fierce, bearded faces and level, inquiring eyes gathered about the intruders.
“Here is the logs, MacNutt,” said Rough Shan. ”

“ Joe demanded in biting tones. “Let me tell you this,” he cried. “Not a man goes out to-night. When I want McCane’s camp burnt I’ll tell you. Yes, and I’ll set fire to it myself. That’s the kind of fellow I am. I won’t hide behind you boys. Now get back, every man of you!”
They hesitated and murmured. Those behind pushed forward. The young man was showing unsuspected qualities. Joe stepped up close.
“Do you men think I’ll let you run this camp?” he demanded. “You’re here to cut logs when I tell you and not to fight till I tell you. ”

“ The fight raged along the length of the slippery, swaying boom-logs. Men knocked off into the river swam and climbed up again, or cunningly seized others by the ankles and upset them, taking the chance of being kicked in the face by spiked boots. Gradually Archer’s men pushed McKenna’s backward and might have driven them from the booms altogether had not the rest of Kent’s crew arrived, thirsting for battle.
Archer’s crew, now hopelessly outnumbered, fought gamely. The fight spread from booms to shore. Tobin went for Archer and met his match. MacNutt tried to get to Rough Shan, but could not. ”

“ And every minute of every hour they worked. Each man moved with a spring and a jump. There were no laggards—none for the foremen to curse. They took in Bill Crooks’s chosen twenty and fired them with the same fierce energy. But this was not a hard task, for the word passed around somehow that on their success in getting out the logs depended the marriage of Kent and Miss Jack. Every man straightway felt a personal responsibility, and the way they sailed into the job made Kent’s crew hustle to keep pace. ”

“ The following day, as he was overseeing the work, Rough Shan McCane came striding through the snow.
“What’s this I hear about your chasing three of my men with an axe?” he demanded.
“Well, what about it?” asked MacNutt indifferently, and the men near at hand listened with all their ears.
“This much,” said Rough Shan truculently. “My men have a right in the woods, an’ not you nor anny one else will stop them going where they like.”
“Well, I did stop them,” retorted MacNutt. “I smashed a jug of booze they were bringing to my camp, and I’d have split their heads if they hadn’t run.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ The logs—Joe’s logs, their logs—must be got out. No matter what toll the river claimed the drive must go down and to market.
It was the way of the world. In this as in other things, human life was the cheapest of commodities; its loss the least important hindrance, of less practical moment than the breakage of an ingenious man-made machine. ”

“ Booms were strung, forming a funnel of which the sluiceway was the outlet. These also served to keep the weight of floating timber off the dam structure.
Satisfied with the strength of his work, MacNutt hurried up stream. Many of the logs were afloat, moving sullenly; others were beginning to rock in the rising water. The men were working hard and steadily, with concentrated energy. Their peavies clanked regularly, and the logs twirled out of their resting places and trundled into the stream. Still the river rose, and MacNutt judged that it was high enough. ”

“ Out in the darkness, by the fitful light of lanterns, half a dozen big riverboats crowded with men, were shackling up short lengths of boom into longer ones. Chains rattled and hammers rang on cold-shuts as the crews joined the timbers. Down the shore for a mile and more other rivermen hunted for boats, taking everything that would pull two pairs of oars.
When she had steam enough the Sophie Green bellowed and cast off, wallowing around in a short semi-circle. A peakie shot under her stern and a heaving-line uncoiled across her deck. ”

“ The ceremony, which was rapidly changing Jack Crooks into Mrs. Joe Kent, proceeded, finished. Kisses were showered on her, handshakes and slaps on the back on Joe. In the midst of these the latter caught sight of a group of weather-tanned faces in the centre of the church. Their owners were standing uncertainly, diffident, not caring to mingle with the more fashionably clad throng that clustered about the principals. Joe turned to his bride.
“There’s Cooley and Haggarty and a bunch of the boys of my river crew, Jack,” he said. “They want to wish us luck, and they’re too bashful to mix. ”

“ Ackerman’s varied activities were not blazoned forth to the world. He was more prominent in finance than in commerce, and so far as they knew he was not identified with any lumber business.
“But he must be,” said Locke thoughtfully. “I’ll see what I can find out. It’s strange. I wonder——” He broke off abruptly and pulled out a drawer of his desk, burrowing among the papers. “Yes, here we are. Huh!” He laid two papers side by side and ran his eye down them. “By the Lord Harry, Crooks, Ackerman is a director of the Peninsular Railway, of the Commercial Bank, and of the Northern Loan Company!” ”

“ Joe asked MacNutt.
“Ward,” said MacNutt, “you hike. Bring every man here, a-jumping. Load up a peakie with tools, blocks and tackle and dynamite and run her down river somehow. Load up another with tents, blankets, and grub, and tell the cook to bring her down. Camp is here till we move the logs. Get a move on you, now!”
“There’s only one thing to do,” he continued to Kent. “The dam has got to be put in again. There’s no fall to speak of, and four foot of water will float the best part of the logs. The rest we’ll have to sack out. It means a week, but we can’t help it.” ”

“ Locke nodded. “You’ll grow. When I started I didn’t know any more about law than you do about logs. You got that letter?”
“Yes, thanks. He said I might tie to you and Crooks.”
Locke looked out of the window because his eyes were filling. To disguise the fact he pretended to search his pockets for a cigar and growled:
“So you may, within limits. Got a smoke there? I’m out.” He lit one of William Kent’s big, black cigars, leaned back in his chair, and crossed one leg over the other. “Now, then, Joe, where shall we start?” he asked. “I’m busy, and you ought to be. ”