第7章

Finally he came to a decision.He communicated this decision to his sister.It would have commended itself more logically to her had she been able to follow step by step the considerations that had led her brother to it.As the event turned, she was forced to accept it blindly.She knew that her brother intended going West, but as to his hopes and plans she was in ignorance.A little sympathy, a little mutual understanding would have meant a great deal to her, for a girl whose mother she but dimly remembers, turns naturally to her next of kin.Helen Thorpe had always admired her brother, but had never before needed him.She had looked upon him as strong, self-contained, a little moody.Now the tone of his letter caused her to wonder whether he were not also a trifle hard and cold.So she wept on receiving it, and the tears watered the ground for discontent.

At the beginning of the row in the smoking car, Thorpe laid aside his letter and watched with keen appreciation the direct practicality of the trainmen's method.When the bearded man fell before the conductor's blow, he turned to the individual at his side.

"He knows how to hit, doesn't he!" he observed."That fellow was knocked well off his feet.""He does," agreed the other dryly.

They fell into a desultory conversation of fits and starts.Woodsmen of the genuine sort are never talkative; and Thorpe, as has been explained, was constitutionally reticent.In the course of their disjointed remarks Thorpe explained that he was looking for work in the woods, and intended, first of all, to try the Morrison & Daly camps at Beeson Lake.

"Know anything about logging?" inquired the stranger.

"Nothing," Thorpe confessed.

"Ain't much show for anything but lumber-jacks.What did you think of doing?""I don't know," said Thorpe, doubtfully."I have driven horses a good deal; I thought I might drive team."The woodsman turned slowly and looked Thorpe over with a quizzical eye.Then he faced to the front again and spat.

"Quite like," he replied still more dryly.

The boy's remark had amused him, and he had showed it, as much as he ever showed anything.Excepting always the riverman, the driver of a team commands the highest wages among out-of-door workers.He has to be able to guide his horses by little steps over, through, and around slippery and bristling difficulties.He must acquire the knack of facing them square about in their tracks.He must hold them under a control that will throw into their collars, at command, from five pounds to their full power of pull, lasting from five seconds to five minutes.And above all, he must be able to keep them out of the way of tremendous loads of logs on a road which constant sprinkling has rendered smooth and glassy, at the same time preventing the long tongue from sweeping them bodily against leg-breaking debris when a curve in the road is reached.It is easier to drive a fire engine than a logging team.

But in spite of the naivete of the remark, the woodsman had seen something in Thorpe he liked.Such men become rather expert in the reading of character, and often in a log shanty you will hear opinions of a shrewdness to surprise you.He revised his first intention to let the conversation drop.

"I think M.& D.is rather full up just now," he remarked."I'm walkin'-boss there.The roads is about all made, and road-making is what a greenhorn tackles first.They's more chance earlier in the year.But if the OLD Fellow" (he strongly accented the first word) "h'aint nothin' for you, just ask for Tim Shearer, an' I'll try to put you on the trail for some jobber's camp."The whistle of the locomotive blew, and the conductor appeared in the doorway.

"Where's that fellow's turkey?" he inquired.

Several men looked toward Thorpe, who, not understanding this argot of the camps, was a little bewildered.Shearer reached over his head and took from the rack a heavy canvas bag, which he handed to the conductor.

"That's the 'turkey'--" he explained, "his war bag.Bud'll throw it off at Scott's, and Jack'll get it there.""How far back is he?" asked Thorpe.

"About ten mile.He'll hoof it in all right."A number of men descended at Scott's.The three who had come into collision with Jimmy and Bud were getting noisier.They had produced a stone jug, and had collected the remainder of the passengers,--with the exception of Shearer and Thorpe,--and now were passing the jug rapidly from hand to hand.Soon they became musical, striking up one of the weird long-drawn-out chants so popular with the shanty boy.Thorpe shrewdly guessed his companion to be a man of weight, and did not hesitate to ascribe his immunity from annoyance to the other's presence.

"It's a bad thing," said the walking-boss, "I used to be at it myself, and I know.When I wanted whisky, I needed it worse than a scalded pup does a snow bank.The first year I had a hundred and fifty dollars, and I blew her all in six days.Next year I had a little more, but she lasted me three weeks.That was better.Next year, I says to myself, I'll just save fifty of that stake, and blow the rest.So I did.After that I got to be scaler, and sort've quit.I just made a deal with the Old Fellow to leave my stake with headquarters no matter whether I call for it or not.I got quite a lot coming, now.""Bees'n Lake!" cried Jimmy fiercely through an aperture of the door.

"You'll find th' boardin'-house just across over the track," said the woodsman, holding out his hand, "so long.See you again if you don't find a job with the Old Fellow.My name's Shearer.""Mine is Thorpe," replied the other."Thank you."The woodsman stepped forward past the carousers to the baggage compartment, where he disappeared.The revellers stumbled out the other door.