“Light reflection,” the ranger explained, and flicked off the wall switch, plunging the room into darkness. Immediately, the broad canopy of the forest leaped into prominence, stretching away on all sides beneath them.
“What a view!” Sandy breathed.
“Wait till you see it in the daylight,” Dick Fellows told him. He turned the light on again and went across to the radio gear. “Have you ever worked one of these things, General Steele?”
Russell Steele grinned. “I had one of the first ham licenses in this country, young fellow.”
“Good; I’ll contact headquarters and turn it over to you.”
Russell Steele looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask all of you to step outside until I find out what this is all about.”
“Certainly, sir,” the ranger said. “I’ll take the boys downstairs and give them a lecture on forestry.” He flicked on the switch and picked up the transmitting mike, twirling dials with his free hand.
“KYAT calling KVK.... Fire station KYAT calling headquarters.... Come in, KVK....”
As soon as contact had been established, Russell Steele slipped into the operator’s chair and put on the earphones.
The ranger and the boys made the long descent to the ground, where Prince was waiting patiently at the foot of the stairs. He wagged his tail and rubbed against them when they patted him, but occasionally he would whimper and glance up anxiously at the top of the tower.
“He’s wondering what happened to Uncle Russ,” Sandy said.
Jerry followed the dog’s gaze. “I’m kind of curious to know what gives up there, myself.”
Dick Fellows held up his hand, motioning for silence. “Do you hear that?” he asked.
The boys stopped talking and listened. Faintly from the northwest there came a distant rumble of thunder.
“Maybe we’ll get some rain,” Sandy said hopefully.
“Let’s hope so,” the ranger said. “And pray that it isn’t just a lightning storm.”
“Do you stay up all night looking for fires?” Quiz inquired. “In bad seasons like this, I mean.”
“Sometimes I do, when there’s been a lot of lightning striking in my sector. Most nights I set my alarm clock to wake me up every few hours or so.”
“You live up here all year?” Jerry asked.
“No, we only man these watchtowers during the fire season.”
“How do you get food and water?” Sandy wanted to know.
“There’s a stream just a few hundred yards back, and I get my supplies by packhorse from headquarters.” Dick Fellows went on to describe the fascinating life of a forest ranger.
About twenty minutes later, Russ hailed them from the top of the tower. “All clear. Come on up, boys.”
As soon as Sandy stepped into the observation room, he knew that whatever had transpired between his uncle and the Pentagon had been very serious. Russell Steele’s face was gray beneath its tan, and it was the first time in Sandy’s memory that he had ever looked his age.
“Trouble, Uncle Russ?” he asked hesitantly.
Russ nodded. “Bad trouble. The very worst.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell us what it is, sir?” Dick Fellows said.
“Well—it is top secret—for as long as it’s possible to keep it that way.” Russ Steele seemed to be struggling with a problem. “Still—I’m going to need all the help I can get. And we’re so isolated here that there’s not much chance of a leak, even if you were inclined to blab about it. Which I know you wouldn’t be,” he added hastily.
“You have my word, sir,” the ranger said quietly.
“And ours,” the boys chorused soberly.
There was a glint of determination in the older man’s eyes. “Good. I think you can help. You’re all familiar with the Strategic Air Command, aren’t you?”
“SAC Never Sleeps!” Quiz recited the slogan of the famous Air Force arm. “Their bombers are in the air twenty-four hours a day. If the United States was ever attacked, SAC stratojet bombers armed with A-bombs would be on their way to knock out vital targets in the enemy’s homeland within seconds.”
Russ Steele nodded. “That’s pretty accurate, Quiz. The Strategic Air Command is the watchdog of our borders. Now, for an outfit that is literally flying twenty-four hours a day, their safety record is amazing; statistics show that a man is safer riding in an SAC bomber than he is driving in the family car.” The muscles tightened across his prominent cheekbones. “But accidents do happen. And last night a B-52 stratofortress had a serious accident.”
“I heard about that on the radio,” Dick Fellows cut in. “It crashed somewhere in Manitoba, Canada. All the crew were killed.”
“That’s only part of the story,” Russ went on. “The last radio report from the bomber placed it over Lake Superior. There was a small fire aboard, but the radio operator thought they had it under control. Shortly after that their transmitter conked out. The Air Force never heard from them again—ship blew up in the air just south of White Mouth Lake on the Canadian border.”
Sandy and the others listened in shocked silence as he continued: “Most of the wreckage has been recovered—and the bodies of the crew.” He paused dramatically. “But there is absolutely no trace of the A-bomb they were carrying.”
Dick Fellows let out a long whistle of astonishment. “What happened to it?”
“Nobody knows. The most logical theory is that they jettisoned the bomb when the fire began to get out of control. Over some desolate area. It could have been dumped almost anywhere between Lake Superior and the scene of the explosion. Search teams have been out scouring the most populated areas since dawn yesterday; they’re the critical points. Not that there’s any danger of the bomb detonating, but a thing like this could cause a lot of hysteria. Then there’s the matter of secrecy.” He grinned wryly. “It wouldn’t do for the wrong kind of people to find it—the kind who would put up a tent around it and sell tickets.”
Quiz frowned. “If the bomb casing is cracked or otherwise mutilated, wouldn’t there be some danger from radioactivity?”
Russ Steele regarded the boy solemnly. “I’d prefer not to discuss that aspect right now, Quiz. We won’t be in any danger searching for it, I can tell you that much. The Air Force is going to drop us a couple of Geiger counters from a helicopter tomorrow morning. So we’ll have ample warning if we approach an area contaminated by radioactivity.”
Quiz Taylor’s eyes were enormous behind his thick glasses. “We’regoing to look for it?”
“That’s what the call from the Pentagon was all about. They knew I was up here and they want me to take charge of the search operation in this area. We won’t have any help from the military until the more densely populated areas have a clean bill of health, but we’ll do the best we can in the meantime.”
He turned to Dick Fellows. “Ranger headquarters are advising all fire stations within a forty-mile radius to clear the woods of campers, fishermen and sight-seers.”
“You folks are the only party I’ve seen in my sector in weeks.”
“Good. And now I’d suggest that we all get to bed for what’s left of the night. Tomorrow will be a rough day.” He glanced at their packs piled up in the middle of the room. “There’s plenty of room for us to spread our sleeping bags on the floor.”
“You can take my bunk, sir,” the ranger said quickly.
Russ smiled. “That’s mighty generous of you, Dick, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I’ve imposed on you enough for one night.”
When his four guests were settled in their bedrolls, the ranger turned out the lights and scanned the surrounding woods carefully from all four windows.
“I guess it’ll keep till morning,” he said wearily, as he stretched out on his bunk.
Just before he fell off to sleep, Sandy was aware of a tremendous luminous flash in the sky to the northwest. “Heat lightning,” he heard the ranger mumble, but he was too exhausted to worry about it.
The storm hit with the suddenness and impact of an earthquake at 6:00A.M.An ear-splitting crash sent the five sleepers jerking up like jack-in-the-boxes. On all sides of the tower the sky was alive with jagged streaks of lightning. The thunder rolled through the air in continuous waves, shaking the earth. The tower creaked and trembled violently. Sandy saw a pair of binoculars on the table dance crazily over the edge and crash to the floor.
Dick Fellows leaped out of his bunk in T-shirt and shorts and swept the other instruments off the table. “A couple of you up here!” he shouted. “The rest of you pile onto chairs or my bunk. Insulated glass legs. Save your life if the tower’s hit. Keep your feet off the floor.”
Sandy kicked out of his bedroll and scrambled up on the table. Jerry and Quiz dove headlong onto the bunk. In a more leisurely fashion, Russ Steele and the ranger sat down on high stools.
They had just settled themselves when they were blinded by a tremendous ball of blue fire that shimmered in mid-air just outside the north window. An instant later, they were deafened by an explosion that sounded like the end of the world. The tower bucked madly, and Sandy was sure it was going to topple over or collapse. Gradually his vision cleared to reveal the most terrifying sight that he had ever witnessed in his entire life. The whole room was full of tiny blue sparks that sizzled as they ran in chains across the icebox and stove and along the metal strips of molding that trimmed the edges of the floor and ceiling. Everything metal was encircled by a sparkling halo. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he looked at the other people in the room. Quiz Taylor’s long hair was standing up perfectly straight on his head like a brush; the same was true of his uncle and Dick Fellows. His own scalp tingled strangely, and he could feel it bristle. Only Jerry’s close crew-cut was unaffected.
“Don’t be frightened,” the ranger said calmly. “There’s no danger as long as you sit tight.”
“On the contrary,” Quiz said brightly. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” He grinned as he touched a hand to his hair. “A fascinating phenomenon of static electricity. Those sparks, too; they’re harmless.”
“You and your education!” Jerry moaned. “I’m petrified. Say, how long do these things last?”
The ranger shrugged. “Hard to say. Maybe ten minutes; maybe an hour.” His face was grave with concern. “And every minute it lasts increases the chance of one of those bolts starting a fire. If only it would rain!”
Sandy suddenly remembered the dog, who had remained below on the ground. “Poor Prince. I wonder how he’s taking this?”
The ranger smiled. “Unless I miss my guess, he’s holed up under my dynamo shack out back—along with an assortment of rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks. There’s nothing like a little lightning to make buddies out of natural enemies.”
“I wish I was with him,” Jerry said, “instead of sitting on top of this giant lightning rod.”
Abruptly it began to rain, a driving downpour, and miraculously, it seemed to Sandy, the lightning stopped. The boys began to cheer and crowded against the windows, watching the drops pelt the treetops below. But their elation didn’t last very long. In less than five minutes, the rain ceased, as if a giant sprinkler had been turned off. Within a quarter of an hour, the clouds disappeared and the sun beamed through. Thin wisps of steam began to rise from the leaves, giving the illusion that the entire forest was smoking.
Dick Fellows slouched despondently on his stool. “I knew it. Not even enough to moisten the ground. And God knows what that lightning started. A couple of good bolts hit trees; I could hear it.”
Sandy scanned the woods to the horizon on all sides. “I don’t see anything to worry about. No fire, no smoke.”
“It’s not that simple,” the ranger told him. “A fire may be burning for days before it’s even detected, particularly in stands of conifers—pines, spruce, et cetera—where the duff is thick. For example, suppose one of those lightning bolts struck a snag—a dead tree—all dry and punky like those sticks the kids light fireworks with. Maybe there’s a single spark smoldering deep down in the trunk, below the surface. Maybe it’s as big around as a pea today; tomorrow it may be the size of a penny. It’s got plenty of time—and lots of fuel. Slowly it will spread, eating up through the duff until it reaches the surface. Now, it’s really ready to go, once it hits the open air and has all that lovely litter on the forest floor to feed on. If we’re lucky, we’ll spot it now because of the smoke.” He stared out grimly across the trees. “With everything so dry, we’d have to be real lucky to control it before it blazes up in the brush and crowns.”
“Crowns?” Jerry said doubtfully.
“Burns through the top of the trees,” Quiz explained, “in the foliage.”
“That’srealtrouble,” the ranger said. He turned to Russ Steele. “Gee, sir, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you out today. I’m going to have to stay rooted up here for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Don’t apologize,” Russ said. “First things first. A forest fire at this time could really complicate my problem.”
“Hey!” Sandy exclaimed. “What would happen if that missing A-bomb was smack in the middle of a raging forest fire?”
Russ Steele looked vaguely troubled. “I don’t know for sure. Probably nothing. It would depend on a great many factors. I’m not anxious to find out, I can tell you.”
The drone of a plane motor suddenly drew their attention to the east window. “It’s a helicopter!” Quiz said excitedly.
“Come on!” Russ said, heading for the door. “Let’s go downstairs.”
No sooner had they reached the ground than Prince came crawling out from under a small shed at the edge of the clearing, barking happily and leaping all over Russ Steele. Russ scratched his head, chuckling. “Dick had you pegged dead to rights, you old coward.”
Jerry knelt down solemnly and held out his right hand to the dog. “Shake, old buddy. Us cowards have to stick together.”
The boys waved as the big chopper began to circle the tower in tightening circles, losing altitude until it was almost level with the observation booth. Slowly it cut speed, until at last it seemed to be hanging motionless in space, held aloft by the great whirling rotors. A hatch opened in the bottom of the fuselage, and a crate was let down carefully on the end of a cable. Before it could touch the ground, Russ Steele rushed over and grabbed it, bringing the fragile package gently to earth. Quickly, he unhooked the cable and waved up at the helicopter. The cable was reeled in smoothly, then with a roar of its engines, the copter leaped into the air. Minutes later it disappeared over the treetops.
The boys watched with interest as Russ Steele unpacked the carton and removed two oblong black Bakelite boxes from the packing. They had a very unscientific, unprepossessing appearance.
“Is that all a Geiger counter is?” Jerry said with a trace of disappointment. “The transformer on my old electric trains looks more complicated.”
Russ smiled. “The Geiger counter is very simple, Jerry—especially when you consider how delicate it is and what it can accomplish.”
“How does it work?” Sandy asked.
“We made one in the science lab once,” Quiz said eagerly. “It’s just two electrodes, really. One of the electrodes is a thin metal cylinder; the other is a metal wire enclosed in a glass tube filled with gas—like a neon light. When the counter is brought near any radioactive substance, the rays given off ionize the gas—so it can conduct electricity—allowing the current to jump the gap and close the circuit, the same way it does when you switch on a light—”
“Only instead of a light, it activates an audible indicator,” Russ said. “That’s theclack-clackyou hear when the counter detects radioactivity. Look how sensitive it is.” He held one of the black boxes near his wrist watch, and it began to chatter vigorously.
“Holy cow!” Jerry exclaimed, leaping backward.
Russ laughed. “That’s the infinitesimal grain of radium in the luminous dial. So, you can feel secure that it will warn us if we enter an area where there’s any unusual radioactivity.”
He rummaged around in the carton and pulled out two canvas straps. “These hook on the ends so the counter can be slung across your shoulder like a camera.”
Prince came over and sniffed suspiciously at the plastic boxes. “Nothing to eat there, feller,” Sandy told him.
“Eat! That’s a good idea,” Jerry said. “I’m famished.”
Quiz was disgusted. “Only Jerry could think of food at a time like this. Who cares about eating when there’s an A-bomb lying right at your door-step?”
“I hopenot,” Jerry said, looking around with an expression of exaggerated horror.
“Jerry’s right,” Russ said firmly. “The first order of the day is to pack away a substantial breakfast. We may be tramping through the woods until dark. Let’s go upstairs and see what Ranger Fellows has cooking.” He gathered up the two Geiger counters and walked to the tower.
Prince whined reprovingly as they left him at the foot of the steps. “I’ll bring you down a bowl of chow right away,” Sandy promised.
They were halfway up the stairs when a sudden thought struck Jerry. “Say, Mr. Steele, what would happen if one of those big lightning bolts hit that atomic bomb square on the nose?”
Russ Steele’s face contracted in a sour grimace. “I don’t know. And stop trying to spoil my appetite.”
Immediately after breakfast, they set out north from the ranger station.
“We’ll be back in three days,” Russ Steele told Dick Fellows. “Using your station as a base, we’re going to cover all the territory between the Black River and the Rapid River, from Red Lake to the Canadian border.”
“Good luck,” the ranger said. “I hope I can be of some help to you.”
Russ shook the young man’s hand. “You have already, Dick.”
As they started through the woods, with Prince crashing through the underbrush ahead of them, Sandy was pessimistic. “How much ground do we have to cover, Uncle Russ?”
“One hundred and twenty square miles or thereabouts. I’m not sure exactly.”
“It seems so hopeless,” Sandy said. “I read in the paper about an airplane that crashed in the north woods with three men aboard and they didn’t find it for four months. A bomb—even an A-bomb—must be considerably smaller than a two-engine plane.”
Russ nodded grimly. “It’s a big order, all right. But don’t forget, there are, or soon will be, hundreds of teams like ours, each covering an assigned sector. If we’re all thorough and painstaking, we’ll find the bomb sooner or later.”
“What about air patrols, General Steele?” Quiz asked. “Why can’t the Air Force retrace the route of the B-52 with another plane? Maybe they could spot the bomb.”
Russ Steele jerked his thumb up at the sky as a wedge of pursuit ships droned overhead. “They’ve been doing that for two days, but it’s a long shot. First of all, no one knows precisely what route that big bomber was flying after the radio conked out. Secondly, it’s pretty difficult to spot objects from the air, especially in heavily forested country like this. An object can drop through this thick canopy of foliage and leave no more trace than if it had fallen into the ocean. No, I’m afraid this is a job for the foot soldiers.”
“FOR-ward MARCH!” Jerry bellowed in a good imitation of a drill sergeant. “Hut-two-three-four....”
Russ laughed. “I’m afraid this operation calls for a loose formation, Jerry. Suppose we maintain an interval of about fifteen hundred feet between each two men. That will keep us within easy hailing distance of each other. I’ll be on the right flank with one of the Geiger counters. You boys can draw lots to see who takes the left flank with the other counter.” He grinned. “That poor guy will have to walk a little more than a mile before we even get started.”
“I’ll be the fall guy,” Sandy volunteered. “I’m in better shape than Jerry or Quiz.”
Jerry sniffed. “Show-off! But I’m not proud,” he added hastily. “Go ahead.”
“That’s settled, then,” Russ said. “Our direction will be due north. You all have compasses; check them regularly. All right, we may as well get started.” He unstrapped the walk-o-meter from his leg and handed it to Sandy. “You better take this to pace off the intervals. Quiz, Jerry and I will wait until you’ve reached your position. Then you sing out and the boys will pass the word down the line. If any of you see anything unusual, sound off and sit tight until I get there.” He pointed to the black box Sandy had slung over one shoulder. “And if that Geiger counter begins to chatter, backtrack fast until it stops.”
Time passed quickly for Sandy. He was a little lonely at first, but it didn’t last long. There were so many fascinating things to be seen in the forest when you were alert, he realized. Chipmunks and squirrels spied on him from tree hollows. He passed within two feet of a rabbit burrowed into a pile of leaves. A lizard that blended so perfectly into the bark of a tree that it was invisible from more than twelve inches away didn’t loose its rigidity, even when he touched its tail. After the first hour, Prince came bounding through the brush to keep him company. An hour later, the dog went off to join somebody else. At regular intervals, the boys would call out to each other, though an attempt by Sandy and Jerry to keep up a running conversation soon left both of them hoarse. They had no chance to get bored. The enormity and excitement of the mission they were performing saw to that.
At noon, Russ Steele called a halt for lunch. “Stay where you are,” he called to Quiz. “Break out a K-ration. Pass the word on to Jerry and Sandy.”
Five hours later, they rendezvoused on the banks of a small river. “We’ll camp here for tonight,” Russ said. “We should make the Canadian border sometime tomorrow afternoon. There’s a logging camp up there, Quiz, so you’ll get a chance to see lumberjacks at work.”
“If I’m still alive,” Quiz said wearily. “I feel as if I’d walked a hundred miles today.”
Russ grinned. “Not quite. Maybe twenty.”
Jerry looked up from a heaping mess kit of beef stew. “Twenty miles! Say, that’s pretty good. Bet you never figured you’d ever be walking that far, eh, Sandy?”
“I’ll say.” Sandy, who had removed his shoes and socks, lifted one bare foot and blew on it. “The soles of my feet feel all puffed up.”
“Before you go to bed soak them in the river,” his uncle told him. “Matter of fact, we can all use a good bath.”
After they had finished eating, the boys teamed up to wash the mess kits and pans. Then they stripped off their clothes on the river bank.
“Last one in gets KP tomorrow night,” Russ said. He dove off a small bluff, cleaving the water in a perfect racing dive. Prince was right at his heels, yelping excitedly.
“Boy, that dog sure loves to swim,” Jerry said.
Russ surfaced and flicked water at the Doberman with the back of his hand. “He’s a regular porpoise. Come on in, boys; it’s great.”
Sandy walked gingerly down the steep bank and stepped into knee-deep water. “Wow, is it cold!”
“Sissy,” Jerry laughed and went splashing past him. “Yipes! It’s ice!”
“Well, don’t kick it all over me!” Sandy roared.
Quiz gritted his chattering teeth. “The only way to get into ice water isfast.” He belly-whopped between Jerry and Sandy, spraying them from head to foot.
“You sneak,” Jerry gasped.
“C’mon,” Sandy laughed. “Let’s duck him.” He dove in after Quiz.
After a few minutes they began to enjoy their bath thoroughly. “It’s not so cold,” Sandy said.
Jerry flopped on his back and blew a stream of water into the air like a whale. “We’re just too numb to feel it. Look, I’m turning blue.”
“I don’t care. It feels like heaven after hiking twenty miles through the woods with the temperature at an even hundred.”
Russ swam over to them. “How do you know it was a hundred?”
“I’ve got a thermometer,” Quiz told him. “In the little glade where I ate lunch, it was one hundred degrees Fahrenheit at a quarter past twelve.”
Russ gazed somberly toward the forest. “If it doesn’t rain soon—well—I don’t know.”
A purple twilight was settling rapidly over the river as they toweled their bodies briskly and dressed. By the time they finished putting up the pup tents, it was dark. But even darkness brought little relief from the heat that night. And the air was alive with mosquitoes, a few of which managed to penetrate the netting.
“How are we going to get any rest?” Jerry groaned. “It’s too hot to climb into our sleeping bags and if we lie on top of ’em we’ll be eaten alive.”
Quiz sat up and searched through his pack. “I considered this eventuality.” He held up a small aerosol bomb. “DDT. Shut your eyes and hold your breath for a minute, Jerry.” He pointed it up in the air and pressed down the button until the little enclosure was thick with white mist.
“I always knew you were a genius, Quiz,” Sandy yelled over from the other tent. “How about lending it to us?”
“Help yourself.” Quiz reached under the netting and rolled it over to his friend.
Jerry sighed blissfully as Quiz lay back. “That did the trick, Quiz, old boy. You sure saved the day—the night, I mean.”
Quiz grumbled as he rolled over on his side. “If I hadreallybeen smart, I would have brought along an inflatable mattress.” But two minutes later he was asleep.
The new day dawned as bright and hot as the previous one. They broke camp shortly after 8:00A.M.and resumed their trek north at the same 500-yard intervals. The morning passed uneventfully.
At noon, Sandy relayed a question down the line to his uncle: “When do we eat?”
Russ Steele asked the boys whether they could hold out for another hour. “I think we can make the logging camp,” he explained. A chorus of “ayes” answered him.
Shortly after one o’clock, Sandy heard a loud crash in the distance. Right after that Russ Steele rallied the boys around him.
“We’re approaching the logging camp,” he told them. “That noise you just heard was a tree being felled. Sandy, we’d better get these Geiger counters out of sight. No use inviting a lot of questions that we can’t answer. We’ll wrap them up in our shelter halves.”
When that had been taken care of, Russ led the way forward. Gradually the trees began to thin out and diminish in size.
“This is a new stand,” Russ explained. “Nowadays, logging companies do as much replanting as they do cutting. With proper methods of conservation, they hope to undo some of the mistakes of their predecessors.”
A quarter of a mile farther on, they emerged into a large clearing in which a half dozen low, sprawling buildings were situated. There was a great deal of activity in the camp. Across the clearing, a convoy of trucks jammed with lumberjacks pulled out of a dirt road and drew up in front of one building where a long line was forming. Whooping and laughing, the lumberjacks vaulted the tail gates of the trucks and piled over the side-boards.
Russ Steele smiled. “Chow time. That’s the mess hall.”
“What’s their hurry?” Quiz asked.
“I guess you get mighty hungry swinging an ax,” Sandy said. “I read once that a logger eats about five thousand calories a day to keep him going, as compared with the three thousand that the average man needs.”
Jerry grunted. “My old man says I must eat close to ten thousand a day, every time he has to pay the grocery bill.”
“Ten thousand dollars’ worth a day?” Sandy said with a straight face. “That sounds about right for you, chow hound.”
Jerry clipped the tall, slender boy on the arm with his knuckles. “Calories, you dope! Don’t get smart.”
“I’ll bet neither one of you knows what a calorie is?” Quiz said dryly.
Sandy’s forehead puckered up thoughtfully. “I think I do. It’s a unit of energy, isn’t it?”
“That’s close,” Quiz admitted. “It’s the amount of heat—heat is energy—required to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Centigrade.”
Jerry nudged Russ Steele. “Bet you didn’t know that, General Steele?”
Russ smiled good-naturedly. “I had a vague idea it was something like that. Let’s find the office. I used to know the foreman of this camp.”
The boys eyed the lumberjacks admiringly as they walked by the mess hall. Most of them were stripped to the waist, their muscles bunching and rippling in their sun-bronzed arms and torsos as they moved about. The cuffs of their sweat-blackened levis were tucked into the tops of hobnailed boots.
“Let’s recruit a couple of these bruisers for the Valley View football team. Our line would be a stone wall for sure,” Jerry whispered to Sandy.
Russ took them around the end of the mess hall to a small frame shack in the middle of the camp. A big collie was sitting in the open doorway. Instinctively, Sandy reached down and got a hold on Prince’s collar.
“They won’t fight,” Russ told him. “They’re old friends.”
The collie, recognizing Russ, came bounding out of the shack and leaped up on his chest, trying to lick his face. Russ pummeled him in the ribs playfully. “Bruce, old feller, how are you?” He looked up as a short, squat, bald-headed lumberjack appeared in the doorway. “Well, Jonas! I figured they would have retired you by this time.”
The man’s broad face lit up. “Russ Steele! You old dogface! What are you doing here this time of year?”
“Brought my nephew and a couple of his buddies up on a camping trip. Boys, I’d like you to meet Jonas Driscoll, the toughest bull-of-the-woods who ever swung an ax.”
After the introductions, Jonas took them through the back door of the mess hall while the two dogs chased each other around the compound. “I’ll have Cookie fix them up a grand feed from the left-overs,” he said.
Sandy felt self-conscious as Jonas cut in at the head of the line and picked up metal compartment trays and silverware for each of them. “Won’t those other guys get sore?” he asked, as they walked away from the serving table.
Jonas laughed. “Naw, you’re company. Anyway, they’d be scared I’d flatten ’em if they kicked.”
There were about twenty wooden tables with benches running down each side of the mess hall. Jonas led them to a table at the rear that was almost empty. Salt- and pepper-shakers and clean cups were stacked in the middle of each table. As they sat down, Jonas motioned to one of the mess boys, a gangly youth about sixteen. “Let’s have a couple of pitchers of iced tea here, son.”
Jerry gazed bug-eyed at the five pork chops and the mounds of mashed potatoes, vegetables and apple sauce heaped up on his tray. “This is lunch?”
Jonas Driscoll’s blue eyes twinkled. “Just a light snack, son. Wait till you eat supper.”
“Oh boy!” Jerry breathed rapturously.
“You ought to sign him on one of your crews, Jonas,” Russ suggested.
“He’s light on muscle—except between the ears,” Sandy said, “but he’s got the appetite for it.”
“I can’t get sore with all this lovely food in front of me,” Jerry said, as he went to work with knife and fork.
“You been a lumberjack long, Mr. Driscoll?” Sandy inquired.
“Fifty years last May. Started in as a cook’s helper when I was thirteen. And I expect to be at it another forty.”
Russ looked across at his old friend fondly. “Logging is still a rugged business, but nothing like it used to be in Jonas’ prime.”
“I’ll tell the world,” the foreman agreed. “Electricity and the gasoline engine have taken all the work out of it.”
A kibitzing lumberjack at the end of the table held up his hands, thick with calluses. “Is thatso! Well, suppose you tell ’em where I gotthese!”
Jonas laughed good-naturedly. “You’re right, French. Them bulldozers and power saws don’t help you sawyers much—not in this camp anyway.” He turned to the boys. “They’re the boys who swing the axes and pull the big cross-cut saws.”
“Don’t all lumberjacks cut down trees?” Quiz wanted to know.
“Not exactly. There’s a lot of different jobs in logging just like in any other business. There’s sawyers, high riggers, yarders and river hogs. After lunch, I’ll take you out to the stand we’re cutting now and show you around.”
In spite of the fact that Jonas Driscoll kept insisting that all the glamour had gone out of logging, Sandy and the boys found the business of cutting timber fascinating. The husky lumberjacks were amazingly thorough and efficient. Jonas pointed out one massive pine, at least three feet in diameter, that seemed to be the object of heated discussion among the sawyer gang. Long strings with leaded weights dangling at the ends were fixed on the trunk at various heights to determine the tree’s angle to the ground.
“Them plumb lines help ’em figure out which way that old feller would fall naturally,” Jonas explained. “Then they got to take the wind into account and the distribution of the foliage, plus a few other things. After that the gang boss decides how to make it fall where he wants it to.”
“What difference does it make where it falls?” Jerry asked.
“Well,” Jonas drawled, “a big feller like that could squash a whole crew if it fell wrong, for one thing. Or it could end up leaning against another tree, which is kind of messy.” He pointed out a stand of seedlings to the left of the big tree. “Or it could break up a lot of those babies; that’d be cheating your grandchildren out of some fine timber. A good crew boss can drop a tree smack on a little wooden stake and hammer it into the ground.”
Quiz looked impressed. “I’d say your crew bosses must have a thorough knowledge of mathematics to be able to predict the angle of fall so accurately.”
Jonas scratched his bald head. “Well, I don’t know, son. I suppose quite a few of the boys these days have book learnin’. ’Course, in my day, the way you made crew boss was to lick the old boss.”
“Did anybody ever lick you, Mr. Driscoll?” Sandy asked.
The old man drew back his lips, displaying two rows of broken teeth. “A couple of times, as you can see.”
They walked closer to the big pine tree as two muscular sawyers started to make the undercut that would determine the direction the tree would fall. The chips flew as their double-edged axes flashed in the sunlight, and a wedge widened rapidly in the side of the trunk. Their strokes were rhythmic and effortless. Jonas called their attention to the smoothness of the undercut.
“Good men,” he said. “The scarf is as clean as if it was cut by a saw.”
When the undercut was completed to the crew chief’s satisfaction, two other men went to work with a wicked-looking two-handled saw with a curved blade.
“We better mosey back to the sidelines,” Jonas told them. “Mistakes do happen.”
From a safe distance they watched until, at last, the tree began to tremble throughout its length like a live thing. Before the saw was completely through the trunk, there was a grinding, crackling noise and the crown swayed and dipped. Suddenly there was a sharp report that Sandy first mistook for an explosion.
“She’s falling!” Jonas said.
“Tim-m-ber!” the crew boss sang out at the top of his lungs as the great tree toppled slowly and majestically. It landed with a thunderous crash that blurred Sandy’s vision and jarred his teeth. And then, for a full minute, it lay there, writhing and groaning like some prehistoric monster in the throes of death.
The boys were awed.
“I never saw anything like it,” Jerry whispered.
“It sort of gives you a lump in your throat,” Quiz said, his voice touched with reverence. “That tree was probably hundreds of years old. Now it’s gone.”
Jonas dropped one hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Not really. That old tree will help build a lot of fine houses and furnish ’em too. Studding, shingles, chairs, tables, cabinets, the works.”
Immediately, another crew with light power saws began cleaning the limbs off the trunk.
“Soon as she’s limbed,” Jonas explained, “they’ll cut up the trunk into manageable lengths and the dozers and cranes will stack ’em in cold decks.” He indicated a neat pile of logs at one side of the road. “In the old days we had to let them sit here until winter when the roads were iced over, so they’d slide easy behind the horses. Today, we use trailer trucks.”
“Makes it a lot easier on everybody, doesn’t it, Jonas,” Russ Steele said. “Now, tell the truth, the ‘good old days’ weren’t really so good, were they?”
The old man grinned sheepishly. “Well—we got the job done just the same,” he said lamely.
Tractors, with thresher-like attachments, moved back and forth along the length of the felled tree, gathering up the lopped-off branches and chewing them up into smaller pieces. These scraps were later heaped up into mounds.
“Come winter, we’ll burn a lot of that slash and spread the ashes around for fertilizer,” Jonas explained.
“Must be quite a fire hazard in this weather,” Russ Steele said.
The foreman’s mouth tightened. “This heat spell has everybody on edge. It’s getting so I wake up every half hour at night, thinking I smell smoke. We been posting fire watches out here on our own. Them poor rangers got their hands full as it is. You really picked a bad time to go camping, Russ. You going back to Red Lake from here?”
Russ smiled evasively. “Oh, I don’t know. We thought we might go up to the border and watch your boys run some of these logs down the big river.”
Jonas shook his head. “Water level’s too low. You boys want to see a gen-u-wine logging drive, come back up here next spring.”
Sandy was disappointed. “I sure hoped to see that. Do lumberjacks really ride on top of the logs the way you see it in the movies?”
Jonas raised an eyebrow. “I’ll say they do, son. Why a good river hog can ride a fresh pine log through the mill tail as pretty as a Hawaiian on a surfboard. Say, maybe we can put on a bit of a show for you at that. C’mon.”
He led them down the slope toward a small pond nestling in the valley. On the way, he called to two loggers stacking logs.