Harold Titus

“ And Baldy, one of the last of his kind, could not bear it.
He had stood much in his time; stood the coming of a milder breed of bosses, the going on of scores of companions, the arrival of a less stanch army of native stock. But when they put him to bunk and eat and work with foreigners who would not do a man's work and who could not make a man fight—well, something had to break! For in the woods a man's capacity for manual accomplishment and blow-for-blow conflict it the measure of his value to the race ”

“ But Winter at its worst really meant at its best, for logging was on and men like Baldy Brown—known by the set of their jaws and the swing of their shoulders to every camp-boss in the Great Lakes country—are always in demand. ”

“ With his check in his pocket Baldy sat by the bunk-house stove and waited for daylight, muttering to himself and moving his big feet restlessly.
"It's hard," he told the cook as he buttoned his mackinaw and started for the door. "A man can't find a camp where he can do a day's work. I don't want to quit but what you goin' to do? Huh? Furriners!
"A man can't find a camp where it's fit to live!" he flung over his shoulder as he set out into the tingling morning, off through the strip of timber to the edge of the lake where the road crossed a mile-wide arm on fifteen inches of ice. ”

“ But after every few steps his eyes sought a rope which was flung over the top of the load and ran down to the pole. That was the trip-rope to his gooseneck. A gooseneck is a contrivance to which the eveners are attached; a jerk from the rope will release it and set the horses free. It is an essential where heavy hauls are made across ice, for even the best ice will fail at times, logs settle deep into the water and unless the horses are freed they will be dragged to a drowning with a rapidity that is horrible. ”

“ Baldy followed the bent of old customs, established when bosses did not drive men in lumber-camps but busied themselves in search of tasks for the work-gluttons who toiled in the crews. The same condition that had made him revolt up there in the Superior country prevailed here. The crew tagged, had to be pushed from start to quitting time. Not a man of them took pride in his work; not a stroke was made in healthy competition ”

“ At night he was silent again, and again under blankets before the whole crew had finished eating. He was facing the inevitable, he began to understand. Foreigners had come to stay, were penetrating every corner of the woods. It made him restless, with a species of homesickness, and the realization took from him for the moment that lust to break and maim, made him gentler in a morose sort of way. Incentive to fight comes only with having men to whip. ”

“ The cook, who was wise in the ways of frost, turned Baldy over to others hurriedly. When he looked at the Pole he told the camp-boss to telephone for a doctor.
And the cook was looking on late that afternoon when Baldy got out of his bunk and made his way to where the little teamster moaned.
"'S all right, Jack!" he heard the big chap say. "'S all right! Nine men out o' six 'uld 'a' quit them horses. But you didn't; an' you'll get well an' you 'n me'll show these —— furriners what men is!" ”

“ A man was running toward him, but the man was two hundred yards away, in heavy clothing and making it over snow dry as salt, where feet could get no fair hold. The horses would perish before that help came. ”