This was on Tuesday. During the rest of the week Bob worked hard. Even a skilled man would have been kept busy by the multitude of details that poured in on the little office. Poor Bob was far from skilled. He felt as awkward amid all these swift and accurate activities as he had when at sixteen it became necessary to force his overgrown frame into a crowded drawing room. He tried very hard, as he always did with everything. When Collins succinctly called his attention to a discrepancy in his figurings, he smiled his slow, winning, troubled smile, thrust the hair back from his clear eyes, and bent his lean athlete's frame again to the labour. He soon discovered that this work demanded speed as well as accuracy. "And I need a ten-acre lot to turn around in," he told himself half humorously. "I'm a regular ice-wagon."
He now came to look back on his college triumphs with an exaggerated but wholesome reaction. His athletic prowess had given him great prominence in college circles. Girls had been flattered at his attention; his classmates had deferred to his skill and experience; his juniors had, in the manner of college boys, looked up to him as to a demi-god. Then for the few months of the football season the newspapers had made of him a national character. His picture appeared at least once a week; his opinions were recorded; his physical measurements carefully detailed. When he appeared on the streets and in hotel lobbies, people were apt to recognize him and whisper furtively to one another. Bob was naturally the most modest youth in the world, and he hated a "fuss" after the delightfully normal fashion of normal boys, but all this could not fail to have its subtle effect. He went out into the world without conceit, but confident of his ability to take his place with the best of them.
His first experience showed him wholly second in natural qualifications, in ability to learn, and in training to men subordinate in the business world.
"I'm just plain dub," he told himself. "I thought myself some pumpkins and got all swelled up inside because good' food and leisure and heredity gave me a husky build! Football! What good does that do me here? Four out of five of these rivermen are huskier than I am. Me a business man! Why I can't seem even to learn the first principles of the first job of the whole lot! I'vegotto!" he admonished; himself grimly. "Ihatea fellow who doesn't make good!"' and with a very determined set to his handsome chin he hurled the whole force of his young energies at those elusive figures that somehowwouldlie.
The week slipped by in this struggle. It was much worse than in the Chicago office. There Bob was allowed all the time he thought he needed. Here one task followed close on the heels of another, without chance for a breathing space or room to take bearings. Bob had to do the best he could, commit the result to a merciful providence, and seize the next job by the throat.
One morning he awoke with a jump to find it was seven o'clock. He had heard neither whistle, and must have overslept! Hastily he leaped into his clothes, and rushed out into the dining room. There he found the chore-boy leisurely feeding a just-lighted kitchen fire. To Bob's exclamation of astonishment he looked up.
"Sunday," he grinned; "breakfus' at eight."
The week had gone without Bob's having realized the fact.
Mrs. Hallowell came in a moment later, smiling at the winning, handsome young man in her fat and good-humoured manner. Bob was seized with an inspiration.
"Mrs. Hallowell," he said persuasively, "just let me rummage around for five minutes, will you?"
"You that hungry?" she chuckled. "Law! I'll have breakfast in an hour."
"It isn't that," said Bob; "but I want to get some air to-day. I'm not used to being in an office. I want to steal a hunk of bread, and a few of your good doughnuts and a slice of cheese for breakfast and lunch."
"A cup of hot coffee would do you more good," objected Mrs. Hallowell.
"Please," begged Bob, "and I won't disturb a thing."
"Oh, land! Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Hallowell, "there's teamsters and such in here all times of the day and night. Help yourself."
Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman's canvas lunch bag, was walking rapidly up the River Trail. He did not know whither he was bound; but here at last was a travelled way. It was a brilliant blue and gold morning, the air crisp, the sun warm. The trail led him first across a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded rises, green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently melted snow. Then came a fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable tangle—oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack—and through it all an abattis of old slashing—with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along one of these strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but refused to move faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike tail. The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses. The poles were old and slippery, and none too large. Bob had to walk circumspectly to stay on them at all. Shortly, however, he stepped off into the higher country of the hardwoods. Here the spring had passed, scattering her fresh green. The tops of the trees were already in half-leaf; the lower branches just budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from above. Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered the ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless carpet. Through it pushed the early blossoms of the hepatica. Grackles whistled clearly. Distant redwings gave their celebrated imitation of a great multitude. Bluebirds warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional remarks. The sun slanted through the forest.
Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received these things gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of physical joy and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than with an analysis of its components. At one point, however, he paused. The hardwoods had risen over a low hill. Now they opened to show a framed picture of the river, distant and below. In contrast to the modulated browns of the tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue steel. Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses. Again, the river was clear. While Bob watched, a man floated into view. He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log so small that the water lapped over its top. From this distance Bob could but just make it out. The man leaned carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he floated, graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to the mill.
Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.
"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to himself. "They're always guying the fellows that tip over their cranky little shells."
He stopped short.
"I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn to do it. I sureama dub!"
He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The brightness of the day had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change had taken place. Over the sun banked clouds had drawn. With the disappearance of the sunlight a little breeze, before but a pleasant and wandering companion to the birds, became cold and draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy; and as for the birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew plaintive as though with the portent of late autumn.
This sudden transformation, usual enough with every passing cloud in the childhood of the spring, reacted still further on Bob's spirits. He trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of water caught his attention to the left. He deserted the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his way through a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and puddles, and found himself on the shores of a round lake.
It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by tall, dead brown grasses. These were in turn fringed by melancholy tamaracks. The water was dark slate colour, and ruffled angrily by the breeze which here in the open developed some slight strength. It reminded Bob of a "bottomless" lake pointed out many years before to his childish credulity. A lonesome hell diver flipped down out of sight as Bob appeared.
The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his tread. A stub attracted him. He perched on the end of it, his feet suspended above the wet, and abandoned himself to reflection. The lonesome diver reappeared. The breeze rustled the dead grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed to be shivering in the cold.
Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple with the world outside. To his direct American mind the problem was simplicity in the extreme. An idler is a contemptible being. A rich idler is almost beneath contempt. A man's life lies in activity. Activity, outside the artistic and professional, means the world of business. All teaching at home and through the homiletic magazines, fashionable at that period, pointed out but one road to success in this world—the beginning at the bottom, as Bob was doing; close application; accuracy; frugality; honesty; fair dealing. The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and imagination; but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they were taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this world, something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in this baffling and unsuspected incapacity he found a great humility of spirit? In his fashion he began to remember trifling significances which at the time had meant little to him. Thus, a girl had once told him, half seriously:
"Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice, big, blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."
He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten. Now he caught at one word of it. That might explain it; he was just plain stupid! And stupid boys either played polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts—or occupied ornamental—too ornamental—desks for an hour or so a day. Bob remembered how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins under the delighted belief that he was driving his father's spirited pair.
"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said aloud in disgust. At the sound of his voice the diver disappeared. Bob laughed and felt a trifle better.
He reviewed himself dispassionately. He could not but admit that he had tried hard enough, and that he had courage. It was just a case of limitation. Bob, for the first time, bumped against the stone wall that hems us in on all sides—save toward the sky.
He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement that somehow found its prototype in the mournful little lake with its leaden water, its cold breeze, its whispering, dried marsh grasses, its funereal tamaracks, and its lonesome diver.
But Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped down to the office, animated by a new courage. Even stupid boys learn, he remembered. It takes longer, of course, and requires more application. But he was strong and determined. He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took four years to make the team—Fatty, who couldn't get a signal through his head until about time for the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable seconds after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's" chopping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did make the team in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him a very good centre, not brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.
Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It was a heavy day's work. The mill was just hitting its stride, the tall ships were being laden and sent away to the four winds, buyers the country over were finishing their contracts. Collins, his coat off, his sleeve protectors strapped closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense white heat. He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive interruption. His manner to those who entered the office was civil but curt. Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with life.
About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation of the tally board.
"Orde!" said he sharply.
Bob disentangled himself from his chair.
"Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and nervous finger at three of the tags he held in his hand.
"There's three errors." He held out for inspection the original sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.
Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement. He had checked the tags over twice, and both times the error had escaped his notice. His mind, self-hypnotized, had passed them over in the same old fashion. Yet he had taken especial pains with that list.
"I happened, just happened, to check these back myself," Collins was saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made that contract with Robinson on the basis of what these tags show. We haven't got that much seasoned uppers, nor anything like it. If you've made many more breaks like this, if we'd contracted with Robinson for what we haven't got or couldn't get, we'd be in a nice mess—and so would Robinson!"
"I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."
"Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big enough for the job. I can't get behind, checking over your work. This office is too rushed as it is. Can't fool with blundering stupidity."
Bob flushed at the word.
"I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins. "You may be all right, for all I know, but I haven't got time to find out."
He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone receiver.
"Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I want him to help me. I don't give a damn for the scaling. You'll have to get along somehow. The five of you ought to hold that down. Send up Gould, anyhow." He slammed up the receiver, muttering something about incompetence. Bob for a moment had a strong impulse to retort, but his anger died. He saw that Collins was not for the moment thinking of him at all as a human being, as a personality—only as a piece of this great, swiftly moving machine, that would not run smoothly. The fact that he had come under Fox's convoy evidently meant nothing to the little bookkeeper, at least for the moment. Collins was entirely accustomed to hiring and discharging men. When transplanted to the frontier industries, even such automatic jobs as bookkeeping take on new duties and responsibilities.
Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his hat.
"That will be all, then?" he asked.
Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had fallen.
"Oh—yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't take chances on these things being right."
"Of course not," said Bob steadily.
"You just need more training," went on Collins with some vague idea of being kind to this helpless, attractive young fellow. "I learned under Harry Thorpe that results is all a man looks at in this business."
"I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he was lost in the rapid computations and calculations that filled his hours.
Bob left the office and tramped blindly out of town. His feet naturally led him to the River Trail. Where the path finally came out on the banks of the river, he sat down and delivered himself over to the gloomiest of reflections.
He was aroused finally by a hearty greeting from behind him. He turned without haste, surprise or pleasure to examine the new comer.
Bob saw surveying him a man well above sixty, heavy-bodied, burly, big, with a square face, heavy-jowled and homely, with deep blue eyes set far apart, and iron gray hair that curled at the ends. With the quick, instinctive sizing-up developed on the athletic field, Bob thought him coarse-fibred, jolly, a little obtuse, but strong—very strong with the strength of competent effectiveness. He was dressed in a slouch hat, a flannel shirt, a wrinkled old business suit and mud-splashed, laced half-boots.
"Well, bub," said this man, "enjoying the scenery?"
"Yes," said Bob with reserve. He was in no mood for casual conversation, but the stranger went on cheerfully.
"Like it pretty well myself, hereabouts." He filled and lighted a pipe. "This is a good time of year for the woods; no mosquitos, pretty warm, mighty nice overhead. Can't say so much for underfoot." He lifted and surveyed one foot comically, and Bob noticed that his shoes were not armed with the riverman's long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty good hunting here in the fall, and fishing later. Not much now. Up here to look around a little?"
"No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.
"This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a pretty unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-apology for his curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose—or maybe selling?"
Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against this apparent intrusion on his private affairs. He met the good-humoured, jolly eyes. In spite of himself he half smiled.
"Not that either," said he.
"You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the stranger with an undercurrent of huge delight in his tone, as though he were playing a game that he enjoyed.
Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short laugh and a bitter one.
"No," said he shortly, "—not now. I've just been fired."
The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the log.
"Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"
"The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and without the slightest note of complaint.
"Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after a moment. "I'm pretty close to Fox. Perhaps----."
"It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly. "It's a case of total incompetence."
"That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you," said the older man with a sudden return to his undertone of bantering jollity.
"Well, I've filled it," said Bob. "That's the one job I've done good and plenty."
"Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"
"Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."
The stranger chuckled.
"Heisa peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What did you do to him?"
Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be considered humorous. The stranger became grave.
"That all?" he inquired.
Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.
"No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences he told of his whole experience since entering the business world. When he had finished, his companion puffed away for several moments in silence.
"Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.
"I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father I'm no good. That is the only thing I can see ahead to now. It will break him all up, and I don't blame him. Father is too good a man himself not to feel this sort of a thing."
"I see," said the stranger. "Well, it may come out in the wash," he concluded vaguely after a moment. Bob stared out at the river, lost in the gloomy thoughts his last speech had evoked. The stranger improved the opportunity to look the young man over critically from head to foot.
"I see you're a college man," said he, indicating Bob's fraternity pin.
"Yes," replied the young man listlessly. "I went to the University."
"That so!" said the stranger, "well, you're ahead of me. I never got even to graduate at the high school."
"Am I?" said Bob.
"What did you do at college?" inquired the big man.
"Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol Ec.----"
"I don't mean what you learned. What did youdo?"
Bob reflected.
"I don't believe I did a single earthly thing except play a little football," he confessed.
"Oh, you played football, did you? That's a great game! I'd rather see a good game of football than a snake fight. Make the 'varsity?"
"Yes."
"Where did you play?"
"Halfback."
"Pretty heavy for a 'half,' ain't you?"
"Well—I train down a little—and I managed to get around."
"Play all four years?"
"Yes."
"Like it?"
Bob's eye lit up. "Yes!" he cried. Then his face fell. "Too much, I guess," he added sadly.
For the first time the twinkle, in the stranger's eye found vocal expression. He chuckled. It was a good, jolly, subterranean chuckle from deep in his throat, and it shook all his round body to its foundations.
"Who bossed you?" he asked, "—your captain, I mean. What sort of a fellow was he? Did you get along with him all right?"
"Had to," Bob grinned wryly; "you see they happened to make me captain."
"Oh, they happened to, did they? What is your name?"
"Orde."
The stranger gurgled again.
"You're just out then. You must have captained those big scoring teams."
"They were good teams. I was lucky," said Bob.
"Didn't I see by the papers that you went back to coach last fall?"
"Yes."
"I've been away and couldn't keep tab. How did you come out?"
"Pretty well."
"Win all your games?"
"Yes."
"That's good. Thought you were going to have a hard row to hoe. Before I went away the papers said most of the old men had graduated, and the material was very poor. How did you work it?"
"The material was all right," Bob returned, relaxing a trifle in the interest of this discussion. "It was only a little raw, and needed shaking into shape."
"And you did the shaking."
"I suppose so; but you see it didn't amount to much because I'd had a lot of experience in being captain."
The stranger chuckled one of his jolly subterranean chuckles again. He arose to his feet.
"Well, I've got to get along to town," said he.
"I'll trot along, too," said Bob.
They tramped back in silence by the River Trail. On the pole trail across the swamp the stranger walked with a graceful and assured ease in spite of his apparently unwieldy build. As the two entered one of the sawdust-covered streets, they were hailed by Jim Mason.
"Why, Mr. Welton!" he cried, "when did you get in and where did you come from?"
"Just now, Jim," Welton answered. "Dropped off at the tank, and walked down to see how the river work was coming on."
Toward dusk Welton entered the boarding house where Bob was sitting rather gloomily by the central stove. The big man plumped himself down into a protesting chair, and took off his slouch hat. Bob saw his low, square forehead with the peculiar hair, black and gray in streaks, curling at the ends.
"Why don't you take a little trip with me up to the Cedar Branch?" he asked Bob without preamble. "No use your going home right now. Your family's in Washington; and will be for a month or so yet."
Bob thought it over.
"Believe I will," he decided at last.
"Do so!" cried Welton heartily. "Might as well see a little of the life. Don't suppose you ever went on a drive with your dad when you were a kid?"
"No," said Bob, "I used to go up to the booms with him—I remember them very well; but we moved up to Redding before I was old enough to get about much."
Welton nodded his great head.
"Good old days," he commented; "and let me tell you, your dad was one of the best of 'em. Jack Orde is a name you can scare fresh young rivermen with yet," he added with a laugh. "Well, pack your turkey to-night; we'll take the early train to-morrow."
That evening Bob laid out what he intended to take with him, and was just about to stuff it into a pair of canvas bags when Tommy Gould, the youngest scaler, pushed open the door.
"Hello!" he smiled engagingly; "where are you going? Been transferred from the office?"
"On drive," said Bob, diplomatically ignoring the last question.
Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until he was weak. Bob stared at him.
"Is there anything funny?" he inquired at last.
"Did you say on drive?" inquired Tommy feebly.
"Certainly."
"With that?" Tommy pointed a wavering finger at the pile of duffle.
"What's the matter with it?" inquired Bob, a trifle uncertainly.
"Oh,it'sall right. Only wait till Roaring Dick sees it. I'd like to see his face."
"Look here, Tommy," said Bob with decision, "this isn't fair. I've never been on drive before, and you know it. Now tell me what's wrong or I'll wring your fool neck."
"You can't take all that stuff," Tommy explained, wiping his eyes. "Why, if everybody had all that mess, how do you suppose it would be carried?"
"I've only got the barest necessities," objected Bob.
"Spread out your pile," Tommy commanded. "There. Take those. Now forget the rest."
Bob surveyed the single change of underwear and the extra socks with comical dismay. Next morning when he joined Welton he discovered that individual carrying a tooth brush in his vest pocket and a pair of woolen socks stuffed in his coat. These and a sweater were his only baggage. Bob's "turkey," modest as it was, seemed to represent effete luxury in comparison.
"How long will this take?" he asked.
"The drive? About three weeks," Welton told him. "You'd better stay and see it. It isn't much of a drive compared with the old days; but in a very few years there won't be any drives at all."
They boarded a train which at the end of twenty minutes came to a stop. Bob and Welton descended. The train moved on, leaving them standing by the track.
The remains of the forest, overgrown with scrub oak and popple thickets pushed down to the right of way. A road, deep with mud and water, beginning at this point, plunged into the wilderness. That was all.
Welton thrust his hands in his pockets and splashed cheerfully into the ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little bag and followed. Somehow he had vaguely expected some sort of conveyance.
"How far is it?" he asked.
"Oh, ten or twelve miles," said Welton.
Bob experienced a glow of gratitude to the blithe Tommy Gould. What would he have done with that baggage out here in this lonesome wilderness of unbroken barrens and mud?
The day was beautiful, but the sun breaking through the skin of last night's freezing, softened the ground until the going was literally ankle-deep in slush. Welton, despite his weight, tramped along cheerfully in the apparently careless indifference of the skilled woods walker. Bob followed, but he used more energy. He was infinitely the older man's superior in muscle and endurance, yet he realized, with respect and admiration, that in a long or difficult day's tramp through the woods Welton would probably hold him, step for step.
The road wound and changed direction entirely according to expedient. It was a "tote road" merely, cutting across these barrens by the directest possible route. Deep mire holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder, puddles and cruel ruts diversified the way. Occasional teeth-rattling stretches of "corduroy" led through a swamp.
"I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob voiced his marvel, after a time.
"It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled while the ground is frozen. A man goes by hand now."
In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide and wallow. The going was trying on muscle and wind. To right and left stretched mazes of white popples and willows tangled with old berry vines and the abattis of the slashings. Water stood everywhere. To traverse that swamp a man would have to force his way by main strength through the thick growth, would have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands, he would furthermore be compelled, through all the vicissitudes of making his way, to hold it always at the balance ready for the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is wary, and flies like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost before the roar of its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that veil of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the many positions in which the chance of the moment may have caught him. Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his pulses quickened to the call of it.
"Many partridge?" he asked.
"Lots," replied Welton; "but the country's too confounded big to hunt them in. Like to hunt?"
"Nothing better," said Bob.
After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the hardwoods, full of warmth and light and new young green, and the voices of many creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of last autumn's brown, the tiny patches of melting snow, and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and clear surfaces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.
Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to talk much, and yet the sum of his information was considerable.
"That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down to Thompson's. He's a settler. Lives on a little lake.
"There's a deer," he remarked, "over in that thicket against the hill."
Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal bounded away, waving the white flag of its tail.
"Settlers up here are a confounded nuisance," went on Welton after a while. "They're always hollering for what they call their 'rights.' That generally means they try to hang up our drive. The average mossback's a hard customer. I'd rather try to drive nails in a snowbank than tackle driving logs through a farm country. They never realize that we haven't got time to talk it all out for a few weeks. There's one old cuss now that's making us trouble about the water. Don't want to open up to give us a fair run through the sluices of his dam. Don't seem to realize that when we start to go out, we've got to go out in ahurry, spite o' hell and low water."
He went on, in his good-natured, unexcited fashion, to inveigh against the obstinacy of any and all mossbacks. There was no bitterness in it, merely a marvel over an inexplicable, natural phenomenon.
"Suppose youdidn'tget all the logs out this year," asked Bob, at length. "Of course it would be a nuisance; but couldn't you get them next year?"
"That's the trouble," Welton explained. "If you leave them over the summer, borers get into them, and they're about a total loss. No, my son, when you start to take out logs in this country, you've got totake them out!"
"That's what I'm going in here for now," he explained, after a moment. "This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had to take over from another firm. It is an unimproved river, and difficult to drive, and just lined with mossbacks. The crew is a mixed bunch—some old men, some young toughs. They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It really needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for this little proposition. He's got Darrell in charge. Darrell's a good man on a big job. Then he feels his responsibility, keeps sober and drives his men well. But I'm scared he won't take this little drive serious. If he gets one drink in him, it's all off!"
"I shouldn't think it would pay to put such a man in charge," said Bob, more as the most obvious remark than from any knowledge or conviction.
"Wouldn't you?" Welton's eyes twinkled. "Well, son, after you've knocked around a while you'll find that every man is good for something somewhere. Only you can't put a square peg in a round hole."
"How much longer will the high water last?" asked Bob.
"Hard to say."
"Well, I hope you get the logs out," Bob ventured.
"Sure we'll get them out!" replied Welton confidently. "We'll get them out if we have to go spit in the creek!" With which remark the subject was considered closed.
About four o'clock of the afternoon they came out on a low bluff overlooking a bottom land through which flowed a little stream twenty-five or thirty feet across.
"That's the Cedar Branch," said Welton, "and I reckon that's one of the camps up where you see that smoke."
They deserted the road and made their way through a fringe of thin brush to the smoke. Bob saw two big tents, a smouldering fire surrounded by high frames on which hung a few drying clothes, a rough table, and a cooking fire over which bubbled tremendous kettles and fifty-pound lard tins suspended from a rack. A man sat on a cracker box reading a fragment of newspaper. A boy of sixteen squatted by the fire.
This man looked up and nodded, as Welton and his companion approached.
"Where's the drive, doctor?" asked the lumberman.
"This is the jam camp," replied the cook. "The jam's upstream a mile or so. Rear's back by Thompson's somewheres."
"Is there a jam in the river?" asked Bob with interest. "I'd like to see it."
"There's a dozen a day, probably," replied Welton; "but in this case he just means the head of the drive. We call that the 'jam.'"
"I suppose Darrell's at the rear?" Welton asked the cook.
"Yep," replied that individual, rising to peer into one of his cavernous cooking utensils.
"Who's in charge here?"
"Larsen"
"H'm," said Welton. "Well," he added to himself, "he's slow, safe and sure, anyway."
He led the way to one of the tents and pulled aside the flap. The ground inside was covered by a welter of tumbled blankets and clothes.
"Nice tidy housekeeping," he grinned at Bob. He picked out two of the best blankets and took them outside where he hung them on a bush and beat them vigorously.
"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."
"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired Bob.
"They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn't they can bunk together."
Bob walked to the edge of the stream. It was not very wide, yet at this point it carried from three to six or eight feet of water, according to the bottom. A few logs were stranded along shore. Two or three more floated by, the forerunners of the drive. Bob could see where the highest water had flung debris among the bushes, and by that he knew that the stream must be already dropping from its freshet.
It was now late in the afternoon. The sun dipped behind a cold and austere hill-line. Against the sky showed a fringe of delicate popples, like spray frozen in the rise. The heavens near the horizon were a cold, pale yellow of unguessed lucent depths, that shaded above into an equally cold, pale green. Bob thrust his hands in his pockets and turned back to where the drying fire, its fuel replenished, was leaping across the gathering dusk.
Immediately after, the driving crews came tramping in from upstream. They paid no attention to the newcomers, but dove first for the tent, then for the fire. There they began to pull off their lower garments, and Bob saw that most of them were drenched from the waist down. The drying racks were soon steaming with wet clothes.
Welton fell into low conversation with an old man, straight and slender as a Norway pine, with blue eyes, flaxen hair, eyebrows and moustache. This was Larsen, in charge of the jam, honest, capable in his way, slow of speech, almost childlike of glance. After a few minutes Welton rejoined Bob.
"He's a square peg, all right," he muttered, more to himself than to his companion. "He's a good riverman, but he's no river boss. Too easy-going. Well, all he has to do is to direct the work, luckily. If anything really goes wrong, Darrell would be down in two jumps."
"Grub pile!" remarked the cook conversationally.
The men seized the utensils from a heap of them, and began to fill their plates from the kettles on the table.
"Come on, bub," said Welton, "dig in! It's a long time till breakfast!"
The cook was early a foot next morning. Bob, restless with the uneasiness of the first night out of doors, saw the flicker of the fire against the tent canvas long before the first signs of daylight. In fact, the gray had but faintly lightened the velvet black of the night when the cook thrust his head inside the big sleeping tents to utter a wild yell of reveille.
The men stirred sleepily, stretched, yawned, finally kicked aside their blankets. Bob stumbled into the outer air. The chill of early morning struck into his bones. Teeth chattering, he hurried to the river bank where he stripped and splashed his body with the bracing water. Then he rubbed down with the little towel Tommy Gould had allowed him. The reaction in this chill air was slow in coming—Bob soon learned that the early cold bath out of doors is a superstition—and he shivered from time to time as he propped up his little mirror against a stump. Then he shaved, anointing his face after the careful manner of college boys. This satisfactorily completed, he fished in his duffle bag to find his tooth brush and soap. His hair he arranged painstakingly with a pair of military brushes. He further manipulated a nail-brush vigorously, and ended with manicuring his nails. Then, clean, vigorous, fresh, but somewhat chilly, he packed away his toilet things and started for camp.
Whereupon, for the first time, he became aware of one of the rivermen, pipe clenched between his teeth, watching him sardonically.
Bob nodded, and made as though to pass.
"Oh, bub!" said the older man.
Bob stopped.
"Say," drawled the riverman, "air you as much trouble to yourselfeveryday as this?"
Bob laughed, and dove for camp. He found it practically deserted. The men had eaten breakfast and departed for work. Welton greeted him.
"Well, bub," said he, "didn't know but we'd lost you. Feed your face, and we'll go upstream."
Bob ate rapidly. After breakfast Welton struck into a well-trodden foot trail that led by a circuitous route up the river bottom, over points of land, around swamps. Occasionally it forked. Then, Welton explained, one fork was always a short cut across a bend, while the other followed accurately the extreme bank of the river. They took this latter and longest trail, always, in order more closely to examine the state of the drive. As they proceeded upstream they came upon more and more logs, some floating free, more stranded gently along the banks. After a time they encountered the first of the driving crew. This man was standing on an extreme point, leaning on his peavy, watching the timbers float past. Pretty soon several logs, held together by natural cohesion, floated to the bend, hesitated, swung slowly and stopped. Other logs, following, carromed gently against them and also came to rest.
Immediately the riverman made a flying leap to the nearest. He hit it with a splash that threw the water high to either side, immediately caught his equilibrium, and set to work with his peavy. He seemed to know just where to bend his efforts. Two, then three, logs, disentangled from the mass, floated away. Finally, all moved slowly forward. The riverman intent on his work, was swept from view.
"After he gets them to running free, he'll come ashore," said Welton, in answer to Bob's query. "Oh, just paddle ashore with his peavy. Then he'll come back up the trail. This bend is liable to jam, and so we have to keep a man here."
They walked on and on, up the trail. Every once in a while they came upon other members of the jam crew, either watching, as was the first man, at some critical point, or working in twos and threes to keep the reluctant timbers always moving. At one place six or eight were picking away busily at a jam that had formed bristling quite across the river. Bob would have liked to stop to watch; but Welton's practised eye saw nothing to it.
"They're down to the key log, now," he pronounced. "They'll have it out in a jiffy."
Inside of two miles or so farther they left behind them the last member of the jam crew and came upon an outlying scout of the "rear." Then Welton began to take the shorter trails. At the end of another half-hour the two plumped into the full activity of the rear itself.
Bob saw two crews of men, one on either bank, busily engaged in restoring to the current the logs stranded along the shore. In some cases this merely meant pushing them afloat by means of the peavies. Again, when the timbers had gone hard aground, they had to be rolled over and over until the deeper water caught them. In extreme cases, when evidently the freshet water had dropped away from them, leaving them high and dry, a number of men would clamp on the jaws of their peavies and carry the logs bodily to the water. In this active work the men were everywhere across the surface of the river. They pushed and heaved from the instability of the floating logs as easily as though they had possessed beneath their feet the advantages of solid land. When they wanted to go from one place to another across the clear water they had various methods of propelling themselves—either broad on, by rolling the log treadwise, or endways by paddling, or by jumping strongly on one end. The logs dipped and bobbed and rolled beneath them; the water flowed over their feet; but always they seemed to maintain their balance unconsciously, and to give their whole attention to the work in hand. They worked as far as possible from the decks of logs, but did not hesitate, when necessary, to plunge even waist-deep into the icy current. Behind them they left a clear river.
Like most exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would have seemed to an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task, were it not for the misfortunes of one youth. That boy was about half the time in the water. He could stand upright on a log very well as long as he tried to do nothing else. This partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive. But as soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log commenced to roll; he to struggle for his balance. It always ended with a mighty splash and a shout of joy from every one in sight, as the unfortunate youth soused in all over. Then, after many efforts, he dragged himself out, his garments heavy and dripping, and cautiously tried to gain the perpendicular. This ordinarily required several attempts, each of which meant another ducking as the treacherous log rolled at just the wrong instant. The boy was game, though, and kept at it earnestly in spite of repeated failure.
Welton watched two repetitions of this performance.
"Dick!" he roared across the tumult of sound.
Roaring Dick, whose light, active figure had been seen everywhere across the logs, looked up, recognized Welton, and zigzagged skilfully ashore. He stamped the water from his shoes.
"Why don't you fire that kid ashore?" demanded Welton. "Do you want to drown him? He's so cold now he don't know where's his feet?"
Roaring Dick glanced carelessly at the boy. The latter had succeeded in gaining the shallows, where he was trying to roll over a stranded log. His hands were purple and swollen; his face puffed and blue; violent shivers shook him from head to foot; his teeth actually chattered when, for a moment, he relaxed his evident intention to stick it through without making a sign. All his movements were slow and awkward, and his dripping clothes clung tight to his body.
"Oh, him!" said Roaring Dick in reply. "I didn't pay no more attention to him than to one of these yere hell divers. He ain't nogood, so I clean overlooked him. Here, you!" he cried suddenly.
The boy looked up, Bob saw him start convulsively, and knew that he had met the impact of that peculiar dynamic energy in Roaring Dick's nervous face. He clambered laboriously from the shallows, the water draining from the bottom of his "stagged" trousers.
"Get to camp," snapped Dick. "You're laid off."
"Why did you ever take such a man on in the first place?" asked Welton.
"He was here when I come," replied Roaring Dick, indifferently, "and, anyway, he's bound he's goin to be a river-hog. You couldn't keep him out with a fly-screen."
"How're things going?" inquired Welton.
"All right," said Roaring Dick. "This ain't no drive to have things goin' wrong. A man could run a hand-organ, a quiltin' party and this drive all to once and never drop a stitch."
"How about old Murdock's dam? Looks like he might make trouble."
"Ain't got to old Murdock yet," said Roaring Dick. "When we do, we'll trim his whiskers to pattern. Don't you worry none about Murdock."
"I don't," laughed Welton. "But, Dick, what are all these deadheads I see in the river? Our logs are all marked, aren't they?"
"They's been some jobbing done way below our rollways," said Roaring Dick, "and the mossbacks have been taking 'em out long before our drive got this far. Them few deadheads we've picked up along the line; mossbacks left 'em stranded. They ain't very many."
"I'll send up a marking hammer, and we'll brand them. Finders keepers."
"Sure," said Roaring Dick.
He nodded and ran out over the logs. The work leaped. Wherever he went the men took hold as though reanimated by an electric current.
"Dick's a driver," said Welton, reflectively, "and he gets out the logs. But I'm scared he don't take this little job serious."
He looked out over the animated scene for a moment in silence. Then he seemed suddenly to remember his companion.
"Well, son," said he, "that's called 'sacking' the river. The rear crew is the place of honour, let me tell you. The old timers used to take a great pride in belonging to a crack rear on a big drive. When you get one side of the river working against the other, it's great fun. I've seen some fine races in my day."
At this moment two men swung up the river trail, bending to the broad tump lines that crossed the tops of their heads. These tump lines supported rather bulky wooden boxes running the lengths of the men's backs. Arrived at the rear, they deposited their burdens. One set to building a fire; the other to unpacking from the boxes all the utensils and receptacles of a hearty meal. The food was contained in big lard tins. It was only necessary to re-heat it. In ten minutes the usual call of "grub pile" rang out across the river. The men came ashore. Each group of five or six built its little fire. The wind sucked aloft these innumerable tiny smokes, and scattered them in a thin mist through the trees.
Welton stayed to watch the sacking until after three o'clock. Then he took up the river trail to the rear camp. This Bob found to be much like the other, but larger.
"Ordinarily on drive we have a wanigan," said Welton. "A wanigan's a big scow. It carries the camp and supplies to follow the drive. Here we use teams; and it's some of a job, let me tell you! The roads are bad, and sometimes it's a long ways around. Hard sledding, isn't it Billy?" he inquired of the teamster, who was warming his hands by the fire.
"Well, I always get there," the latter replied with some pride. "From the Little Fork here I only tipped over six times, all told."
The cook, who had been listening near by, grunted.
"Only time I wasn't with you, Billy," said he; "that's why you got the nerve to tell that!"
"It's a fact!" insisted the driver.
The young fellow who had been ordered off the river sat alone by the drying-fire. Now that he had warmed up and dried off, he was seen to be a rather good-looking boy, dark-skinned, black-eyed, with overhanging, thick, straight brows, like a line from temple to temple. These gave him either the sullen, biding look of an Indian or an air of set determination, as the observer pleased. Just now he contemplated the fire rather gloomily.
Welton sat down on the same log with him.
"Well, bub," said the old riverman good-naturedly, "so you thought you'd like to be a riverman?"
"Yes, sir," replied the boy, with a certain sullen reserve.
"Where did you think you learned to ride a log?"
"I've been around a little at the booms."
"I see. Well, it's a different proposition when you come to working on 'em in fast water."
"Yes, sir."
"Where you from?"
"Down Greenville way."
"Farm?"
"Yes, sir."
"Back to the farm now, eh?"
"I suppose so."
"Don't like the notion, eh?"
"No!" cried the boy, with a flash of passion.
"Still like to tackle the river?"
"Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, again encased in his sullen apathy.
"If I send you back to-morrow, would you like to tackle it again?"
"Oh, yes!" said the boy eagerly. "I didn't have any sort of a show when you saw me to-day! I can do a heap better than that. I was froze through and couldn't handle myself."
Welton grinned.
"What you so stuck on getting wet for?" he inquired.
"I dunno," replied the boy vaguely. "I just like the woods."
"Well, I got no notion of drownding you off in the first white water we come across," said Welton; "but I tell you what to do: you wait around here a few days, helping the cook or Billy there, and I'll take you down to the mill and put you on the booms where you can practise in still water with a pike-pole, and can go warm up in the engine room when you fall off. Suit you?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you," said the boy quietly; but there was a warm glow in his eye.
By now it was nearly dark.
"Guess we'll bunk here to-night," Welton told Bob casually.
Bob looked his dismay.
"Why, I left everything down at the other camp," he cried, "even my tooth brush and hair brush!"
Welton looked at him comically.
"Me, too," said he. "We won't neither of us be near as much trouble to ourselves to-morrow, will we?"
So he had overheard the riverman's remark that morning. Bob laughed.
"That's right," approved Welton, "take it easy. Necessities is a great comfort, but you can do without even them."
After supper all sprawled around a fire. Welton's big bulk extended in the acme of comfort. He puffed his pipe straight up toward the stars, and swore gently from time to time when the ashes dropped back into his eyes.
"Now that's a good kid," he said, waving a pipe toward the other fire where the would-be riverman was helping wash the dishes. "He'll never be a first-class riverman, but he's a good kid."
"Why won't he make a good riverman?" asked Bob.
"Same reason you wouldn't," said Welton bluntly. "A good white water man has to start younger. Besides, what's the use? There won't be any rivermen ten year from now. Say, you," he raised his voice peremptorily, "what do you call yourself?"
The boy looked up startled, saw that he was indicated, stammered, and caught his voice.
"John Harvey, sir," he replied.
"Son of old John who used to be on the Marquette back in the seventies?"
"Yes, sir; I suppose so."
"He ought to be a good kid: he comes of good stock," muttered Welton; "but he'll never be a riverman. No use trying to shove that shape peg in a round hole!"