CHAPTER XXVII
The following week found Dale and Owen fully settled at the camp of the Wilbur-Balasco Lumber Company. Mr. Balasco had interviewed them for a few minutes on the morning after their arrival, and had then placed them under the directions of a foreman named Larson, a Swede, who could speak fairly good English. They had gone back to the railroad station for their trunks and valises, and were housed in a cabin at what was called Yard 4, located at the head of the creek. The yards above No. 4 were without a waterway, and the timber had to be hauled down by engines and by horses, although a flume was being built, from a hill half a mile further on. When this was finished, a mountain stream was to be turned into it, which would afford a waterway for all the timber in that section, and also increase the flow in the creek running into the Columbia.
Yard 4 was on a hillside, thickly overgrown with brush, and full of loose stones, so the gang had to work at first with great care, for rolling stones are conducive to twisted ankles and broken limbs. In Larson's gang were sixteen foreigners, and the balance were Oregonians, all muscular fellows, as tough as pine knots.
It must be confessed that both Dale and Owen found the work cut out for them very hard. Larson was a driver, and never gave his men any rest if he could help it.
"Mr. B'asco expect de work and we must do it," said the foreman. "Nobody lak to see de work fall behind. Work up dare, den, an' show what you can a-do." And the men did work up, although not without growling.
At first Dale and Owen were placed among the barkers and sawyers, but as soon as Larson heard that they had chopped down trees in Maine, he let them try their skill on some of the smaller trees to be cut. They went to work with all the skill they could command, doing exactly as they had seen the other fellers do, and when the first tree came down the foreman nodded approvingly.
"Dat's putty goot," he said. "Not so queek as I like, but maybe it goes queeker by an' by, hey?"
"It will go quicker after we are used to it," answered Owen.
He was sorry that they had not been placed in the yard where Andy Westmore and Bruce Howard were located. But there was no choice in the matter, and he and Dale accepted what was offered to them without hesitation.
"If we don't, Mr. Wilbur may think we're a couple of cranks," said Dale. "As he was kind enough to pay our car-fare out here, we ought to do all we can to please him."
"I shan't say a word—at least not this season," answered Owen.
One day was very much like another, until one afternoon Ulmer Balasco paid a visit to the yard. He held a short, earnest talk with Larson, and then ordered that about half of the timber cut should be taken up to where the flume was rapidly approaching completion.
"But you said dat dat timber was needed on dare pig railroad contract," Owen heard Larson say.
"Never mind, Larson; do as I've ordered," answered Ulmer Balasco sharply. "I'll take care of the contract. And there is no use of your working the men to death. If you don't take care you'll have them either quitting altogether, or striking for higher wages."
After that the work went on more slowly, and when a man of the gang stopped to smoke out a pipeful of tobacco the foreman said little or nothing. The lumber that had been ordered for the flume went up day after day, and more followed, so that next to nothing was floated down the creek, to help fill the railroad contract mentioned.
"I must say I can't understand what Mr. Balasco is driving at," said Andy Westmore, when Dale and Owen came down to see him and Bruce Howard, on the following Sunday. "Two months ago it was announced that the company had taken a big contract from the P. C. & W. Railroad, and that the work was to be shoved through without the slightest delay. Everything went swimmingly until about two weeks ago. Then those two yards were closed up, and now some of the lumber has been sent up to the flume, instead of down to the Columbia. They'll never fill that contract on time at this rate."
"Mr. Balasco ought to know what he's doing," said Owen. "Perhaps the railroad is behind in payments."
"I have an idea he wants to get the flume done," put in Bruce Howard. "As soon as that is finished he can send down all the lumber he pleases, from Cat Hill."
"He can get all the lumber he wants right here," went on Andy Westmore. "If he waits for the flume he'll be behind with his contract just as sure as you are standing there."
A part of the Sunday afternoon was spent by Dale and Owen in penning a long letter to Jefferson Wilbur, telling that gentleman of their arrival at the camp, and mentioning what they were doing. Dale also got out the mining papers that had belonged to his father, and made a copy of the documents, and this copy was placed in the letter, which was later on put in a sack along with many others for departure on the mail train when it should stop at Tunley.
So far the young lumbermen had had but little to do with the majority of the men around them, and nothing at all with those employed at the yards beyond Number 4. They had paid one visit to the flume that was building, and inspected with much interest the big trestle which was to carry the timbered waterway from the side of one hill to the bottom of the next.
As mentioned before, the railroad through the timber claim was a winding one, reaching points a good distance from the creek, and from Cat Hill, where the flume was located. The road was an old one, and greatly in need of repair, but Ulmer Balasco would do nothing to it, and had his men work on the flume instead.
Both Dale and Owen liked to ride on the trucks, and when an order came for them to do some extra work at Yard 7, at the end of the railroad line, both were delighted over the prospect.
"Now we'll have a chance to see part of the outfit that we haven't seen before," said Owen, "and get a little breathing spell in the bargain."
A train was going down that afternoon at five, and Dale and Owen were set at work with the rest of the gang, loading the trucks with eight long sticks, five and six feet in diameter, that were wanted for some special purpose by a mill down the river. The sticks, each seventy-five feet long, were winched up on the trucks, and there fastened by big chains, so that none of them might slip while rounding the sharp curves. The fastening of three of these chains was left to Dale and Owen, and they performed this duty exactly as they saw the others doing the work.
"I can tell you what, there is some weight to those logs," remarked Owen, when the stick train was ready to start. "If anything breaks loose on the trip, something will get smashed."
"Are you young fellows going down?" asked one of the train hands.
"Yes," answered both.
"All right then, hop on. And to pay for the trip, suppose you take a hand at one of the brakes?" And the man grinned.
"We can do that, too," said Dale promptly. "Where do you want us to go?"
"You can take this brake, and Webb can take the next. Old No. 1 aint good for much any more, and we have to hold up for her all we can." He referred to the locomotive, which had seen its best days, and should have been on the scrap heap instead of trying to haul a load or hold it back.
The line ran in the shape of the letter S, with a long, graceful curve at the top, and a sharper curve at the bottom, where the roadbed ran along the edge of a rocky gully. The grade was up hill and down, and the track was a single one with six switches, used not alone for turning out, but also for loading.
It had been showering, and although the sun was now shining once more, the tracks were still wet and slippery. Here and there the tree branches overhung in such a fashion that a person riding on the trucks had often to duck to avoid getting struck by them.
"Don't let a limb hit you and knock you off," was Owen's final word of caution, and then the whistle of the locomotive tooted, and with a creak and a groan the log train started on its journey over the hills and down to the yard below.
When the heavy train started, a thrill ran over Dale, and he grasped the brake to steady himself. He was between the ends of two big logs which were so high that he could scarcely look over them. Owen was to the rear, and the train hand who had spoken to them was ahead, while another hand was at the last truck. A thick volume of smoke came down from the stack of the locomotive, and the young lumbermen had to guard against cinders getting into their eyes as they sped along.
The first curve of the journey was made without much difficulty, although trucks and chains creaked ominously as one big stick after another switched around to the straight stretch beyond. Then came a sharp down-grade, and the engineer whistled for brakes, and every man jumped to do his bidding. An upgrade followed, and the brakes were kicked off and on they went as before, over a low trestle and a switch that bumped them so both Dale and Owen nearly lost their footing. Then another down grade, and again the whistle for brakes.
Dale was hard at work when he heard a yell from Owen, and looking along the big stick behind him, saw his chum standing up, waving his hand frantically.
"The chain!" he heard, above the grinding of the wheels. "The chain has broken! Look out!"
For a moment he did not comprehend, but then he realized the truth of what had occurred. The chain on the truck behind had broken away from the steel hook that held it, and now the heavy log was lurching forward on the down grade, with all the weight on the front chain. It was already close to the brake, and just as Dale leaped to the top of the log in front it struck the rod and bent it over as if made of lead.
"If it only holds until we get around the curve!" thought Dale, and wondered what he had best do. The train was going faster and faster, and he could not notify the engineer of the trouble, for they would be at the curve in thirty seconds more.
Cling! The front chain snapped, the loose end whipping over the log and ringing sharply against the twisted brake. Then the big log lurched forward and struck the log on which Dale rested with the impact of a battering ram. There was a dull thud, and both logs swerved to the right and the left as if about to leave the trucks entirely. Dale clutched at his footing, tried to scramble up, and then pitched forward into space. Owen, on the trucks in the rear, saw the logs swerve, and saw the end of one hit some rocks beside the tracks. Then, to avoid a crushing blow, he leaped from the swiftly moving train, struck some thick brushwood on the down side of a hill, and disappeared like a flash from view.