Part 11 (1/2)

In answer to the whining call of the giant, the wolf-dog, trotting beside the lazy team, swerved and nipped at the horses' heels. The pace became a jogging trot. Soon they were in view of the long, smooth mound of sawdust leading to the squat, rambling saw shed. A moment more and the bunk house, its unpainted clapboards blackened by the rain and sun and snows, showed ahead. A half-mile, then Ba'tiste left the wagon and, Barry following him, walked toward the mill and its whining, groaning saws.

”Watch close!” he ordered. ”See ever'thing they do. Then remember.

Ba'tiste tell you about it when we come out.”

Within they went, where hulking, strong-shouldered men were turning the logs from the piles without, along the skidways and to the carriage of the mill, their cant hooks working in smooth precision, their muscles bulging as they rolled the great cylinders of wood into place, steadied them, then stood aside until the carriages should shunt them toward the sawyer and the tremendous, revolving wheel which was to convert them into ”board feet” of lumber. Hurrying ”off-bearers”, or slab-carriers, white with sawdust, scampered away from the consuming saw, dragging the bark and slab-sides to a smaller blade, there to be converted into boiler fuel and to be fed to the crackling fire of the stationary engine, far at one end of the mill. Leather belts whirred and slapped; there was noise everywhere, except from the lips of men. For they, these men of the forest, were silent, almost taciturn.

To Barry, it all seemed a smooth-working, perfectly aligned thing: the big sixteen-foot logs went forward, rough, uncouth things, to be dragged into the consuming teeth of the saw; then, through the sheer force of the blade, pulled on until brownness became whiteness, the cylindrical shape a lopsided thing with one long, glaring, white mark; to be shunted back upon the automatic carriage, notched over for a second incision, and started forward again, while the newly sawn boards traveled on to the trimmers and edgers, and thence to the drying racks.

Log after log skidded upon the carriage and was brought forward, while Houston, fascinated, watched the kerf mark of the blade as it tore away a slab-side. Then a touch on the arm and he followed Ba'tiste without.

The Canadian wandered thoughtfully about a moment, at last to approach a newly stacked pile of lumber and lean against it. A second more and he drew something to his side and stared at it.

”Oh, ho!” came at last. ”M'sieu Houston, he will, what-you-say, fix the can on the sawyer.”

”Why?”

”First,” said Ba'tiste quietly, ”he waste a six-inch board on each slab-side he take off. Un'stand? The first cut--when the bark, eet is sliced off. He take too much. Eet is so easy. And then--look.” He drew his hand from its place of concealment, displaying a big thumb measuring upon a small ruler. ”See? Eet is an inch and a quarter.

Too thick.”

”I know that much at least. Lumber should be cut at the mill an inch and an eighth thick to allow for shrinkage to an inch--but not an inch and a quarter.”

”Bon!” Ba'tiste grinned. ”Eet make a difference on a big log. Eight cuts of the saw and a good board, eet is gone.”

”No wonder I don't make money.”

”There is much more. The trimmer and the edger, they take off too much. They make eight-inch boards where there should be ten, and ten where there should be twelve. You shall have a new crew.”

”And a new manager,” Houston said it quietly. The necessity for his masquerade was fading swiftly now.

”And new men on the kilns. See!”

Far to one side, a great ma.s.s of lumber reared itself against the sky, twisted and warped, the offal of the drying kilns. Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders.

”So! When the heat, eet is made too quick, the lumber twist. Eet is so easy--when one wants some one to be tired and quit!”

To quit! It was all plain to Barry Houston now. Thayer had tried to buy the mill when the elder Houston was alive. He had failed. Now, he was striving for something else to make Houston the newcomer, Houston, who was striving to succeed without the fundamentals of actual logging experience, disgusted with the business and his contract with the dead.

The first year and a half of the fight had pa.s.sed,--a losing proposition; Barry could see why now, in warped lumber and thick-cut boards, in broken machinery and unfulfilled contracts. Thayer wanted him to quit; his father's death had tied up the mill proper to such an extent that it could neither be leased nor sold for a long time. But the timber could be bought on a stumpage basis, the lake and flume leased, and with a new mill--

”I understand the whole thing now!” There was excitement in the tone.

”They can't get this mill--on account of the way the will reads. I can't dispose of it. But they know that with the mill out of the way, and the whole thing a disappointment, that I should be willing to contract my timber to them and lease the flume. Then they can go ahead with their own plans and their own schemes. It's the lake and flume and timber that counts, anyway; this mill's the cheapest part of it all.”

”Ah, _oui_!” The big man wagged his head in sage approval. ”But it shall not be, eh?”

Houston's lips went into a line,

”Not until the last dog dies!”

CHAPTER VIII