CHAPTER VI
Before the morning meal was over Dale and Owen became acquainted with ten or a dozen of the lumbermen, all rough-and-ready fellows, but above the average of the lumber camps in manner and speech.
"I'm glad we didn't strike a tough crowd," said Dale, remembering a lumber camp he had once visited, in which drinking was in evidence all day long and the talk was filled with profanity.
"So am I," answered Owen. "But I knew this camp was O. K. from the way Winthrop talked."
Luke Paxton, the owner of the camp, was away, but he came in during the forenoon and had a talk with each of the new hands. He was of a similar turn to Winthrop, and asked Dale and Owen a number of short questions, all of which they answered promptly.
"I guess I knew your father," he said to Owen. "I used to have an interest in a lumber yard in Portland. He was a good man." And then he turned away to give directions for putting up two additional shanties in the camp and a log cabin, which would become the general home of the lumbermen when cold weather set in.
That afternoon found Dale and Owen at work close to the camp, helping to cut the timbers for the new cabin. Joel Winthrop watched them as each brought down the first tree. "That's all right," he said, and then gave them directions for continuing their labors.
The men in the camp were divided into gangs of twenty to thirty persons, consisting of choppers or fellers, swampers, drivers or haulers, and a boss who watched the work, picking out the trees to be cut and directing just how they should be made to fall, so that they could be gotten away with the least trouble. Later in the season there would be sled drivers and tenders, or loaders, and also a man to bring out the midday meal when the gang was too far into the woods to come to camp to eat.
The building of the big cabin was no mean task, and it took one gang three weeks to do it. It was built of rough logs, notched and set together at the ends. There was a heavy ridge-pole, with a sloping roof of logs on either side, and the floor was also of logs, slightly smoothed on the upper side.
When the cabin proper was complete it was divided into two parts, each containing a window, and one a door in addition. One end was the sleeping room, with bunks built of rough boards, each bunk four feet wide and twelve feet long. Each bottom bunk had another over it, and each was meant for four sleepers, a pair at each end, with feet all together. The bunks had clean pine boughs in them, and a pair of regular camp blankets for each occupant.
The second apartment was that devoted to eating and general living purposes. The door was close to the cook's shanty, but when the weather grew colder the big cooking stove would be placed directly in the middle of the living room, to add its warmth to the comfort of the place. The stove was of course a wood burner, a square affair capable of taking in a log a yard long. For a dining table the deal table from outside was brought in, with its benches, and half a dozen empty provision boxes were also brought in for extra seats. To keep out the cold the cracks of the entire building were stuffed with mud, and on the inside certain parts were covered with heavy roofing paper and strips of bark.
"Now we are ready for cold weather," said Owen, when the cabin was finished and the most of the men of their gang had moved in. He and Dale had a small corner bunk which held but two, and in this they were "as snug as a bug in a rug," as the younger of the lumbermen declared.
The last of the choppers had now arrived, and it was found necessary to put up another cabin for them. Dale and Owen, however, did not work on this, but instead spent every day in the depths of the great forest, bringing down one tree after another, as Gilroy, who now had charge of the gang, directed. Each of the young lumbermen proved that he could swing an ax with the best of the workers, and Gilroy pronounced himself satisfied with all they did.
"It only shows what a young fellow can do when he's put to it," said the foreman one day to Owen. "Now, half these chaps are merely working for their wages and their grub. They do as little as they can for their money, and the minute the season is over they'll go down to Oldtown or Bangor, or some other city, and blow in every dollar they have earned."
"But this camp is better than lots of others."
"Yes, I know that. It's because old Winthrop and Mr. Paxton sort out the men they engage. They won't take every tramp who strikes them for a job."
The men often worked in sets of fours, and when this happened Dale and Owen's usual companions were Andrews and a short, stout French-Canadian named Jean Colette. Colette was good-natured to the last degree and full of fun in the bargain.
"Vat is de use to cry ven de t'ing go wrong," he would say. "My fadder he say you mus' laugh at eferyt'ing,oui! I laugh an' I no geet seek, neffair! I like de people to laugh, an' sing, an' dance. Dat ees best,oui!"
"You're right on that score," said Owen. "But some folks would rather grumble than laugh any day."
"Dat is de truf.Bon!You play de feedle, de banyo; he play de mout' harmonee an' sing, an' yo' are happy,oui? I like dat. No bad man sing an' play, neffair!" And the little man bobbed his head vigorously.
"What a difference between a man like Colette and that Ducrot!" said Dale to Owen, later on. "Yet they come from the same place in Canada, so I've heard."
"Well, there are good men and bad in every town in Maine," answered Owen sagely. "Locality has nothing to do with it."
The fact that Dale and Owen could play and sing was a source of pleasure to many in the camp, and the pair were often asked to "tune up," as the lumbermen expressed it. There was also another violin player at hand, and many of the men could sing, in their rough, unconventional way, so amusement was not lacking during the cold winter evenings. More than once the men would get up a dance, jigs and reels being the favorite numbers, with a genuine break-down from Jeff, the cook, that no one could match.
Winter came on early, as it usually does in this section of our country, and by the end of October the snow lay deep among the trees of the forest, while the pond and the river presented a surface of unbroken ice, swept clear in spots by the wind. For many days the wind howled and tore through the tall trees, and banked up the snow on one side of the cabin to the roof. The thermometer went down rapidly, and everybody was glad enough to hug the stove when not working.
"This winter is going to be a corker, mark my words," observed Owen.
"I know that," answered Dale. "I found a squirrel's nest yesterday and it was simply loaded with nuts. That squirrel was laying up for a long spell of cold."
Yet the lumbermen did not dress as warmly when working as one might suppose. A heavy woolen shirt, heavy trousers, strong boots, and a thick cap was the simple outfit of more than one, and even Dale and Owen rarely wore their coats.
"Swinging an ax warms me, no matter how low the glass is," said Owen. "And I haven't got to pile any liquor in me either."
Often, while deep in the woods, the two young lumbermen would catch sight of a wolf or a fox, attracted to the neighborhood by the smell of the camp cooking. But though the beasts were hungry they knew enough to keep their distance.
"But I don't like them so close to me," said Owen. "After this I'm going to take my gun to work with me," and he did, and Dale took with him a double-barrelled pistol left to him by his father. Some of the others also went armed, and one man brought in a small deer from up the river, which gave all hands on the following Sunday a dinner of venison—quite a relief from the rather wearisome pork and beans, or corned beef, cabbage, and onions.
"To bring down a deer would just suit me," said Dale.
"Just wait, your chance may come yet," answered Owen, but he never dreamed of what was really in store for them.
It was a bitter-cold day in November that found the pair working on something of a ridge, where stood a dozen or more pines of extra-large growth. Each worked at a tree by himself, while Andrews and Jean Colette were some distance away, working in the spruces.
"Hark!" cried Dale presently. "Did you hear that?"
"It was a gun shot, wasn't it?" questioned Owen, as he stopped chopping.
"Yes. There goes another shot. Do you suppose one of the men are after another deer?"
"Either that, or else there are some hunters on the mountain. If they are hunters I hope they don't shoot this way."
"So do I, Owen. Only last year a hunter up here took one of the choppers for a wild animal and put a ball through his shoulder."
"If they shoot this way and I see them I'll give 'em a piece of my mind. They ought to be careful. A fellow——Hark!"
Both listened and from a distance made out a strange crashing through the underbrush of the forest. Then came a thud and more crashing.
"It's a wild animal, coming this way!" sang out Dale. "Better get your gun."
"Perhaps it's a bear!" ejaculated Owen, and lost no time in dropping his ax and picking up his gun.
The crashing now ceased for a moment, and the only sound that reached their ears was the moaning of the wind through the treetops far overhead. The wind was blowing up the hillside, so that the wild beast, if such it really was, could not scent them.
Another shot rang out, from the same direction as the first. This appeared to rouse up whatever was in the wood, and the crashing was resumed with increasing vigor.
"It's coming, whatever it is!" sang out Dale, and pointed out the direction with his hand.
Hardly had the words left his lips when the underbrush and snow beyond the ridge were pushed aside and into the opening staggered a magnificent moose, with wide-spreading antlers and wild, terror-struck eyes. The game limped because of a wound in the left flank, and there was another wound in the side, from which the blood was flowing freely.
"A moose!" shouted Owen, and raising his gun he took hasty aim and fired at the beast.
Now, although Owen was a good woodsman, he was only a fair shot, and the charge in the gun merely grazed the moose's back. It caused the animal to give an added snort of pain. It stopped short for an instant, then its eyes lighted on Dale, and with another snort it leaped forward with lowered antlers directly for the young lumberman!
It leaped forward with lowered antlers directly for the young lumberman.
It leaped forward with lowered antlers directly for the young lumberman.
It leaped forward with lowered antlers directly for the young lumberman.
Bang! went Dale's pistol, and the bullet struck the moose in the forehead. But the rush of the animal was not lessened, and in a twinkling the youth was struck and hurled over the ridge into the gully below, and the moose disappeared after him!