VII
Bob and Welton left the buckboard at Sycamore Flats and rode up to themill by a detour. There they plunged into active work. The labour ofgetting the new enterprise under way proved to be tremendous. A verycompetent woods foreman, named Post, was in charge of the actuallogging, so Welton gave his undivided attention to the mill work. Allday the huge peeled timbers slid and creaked along the greased slides,dragged mightily by a straining wire cable that snapped and swungdangerously. When they had reached the solid "bank" that slanted downtoward the mill, the obstreperous "bull" donkey lowered its crest ofwhite steam, coughed, and was still. A man threw over the first of thesetimbers a heavy rope, armed with a hook, that another man drove homewith a blow of his sledge. The rope tightened. Over rolled the log, outfrom the greased slide, to come, finally, to rest among its fellows atthe entrance to the mill.
Thence it disappeared, moved always by steam-driven hooks, for thesegreat logs could not be managed by hand implements. The sawyers, attheir levers, controlled the various activities. When the time came thesmooth, deadly steel ribbon of the modern bandsaws hummed hungrily intothe great pines; the automatic roller hurried the new-sawn boards to theedgers; little cars piled high with them shot out from the cool dimnessinto the dazzling sunlight; men armed with heavy canvas or leatherstacked them in the yards; and then----
That was the trouble; and then, nothing!
From this point they should have gone farther. Clamped in rectangularbundles, pushing the raging white water before their blunt noses, asstrange craft they should have been flashing at regular intervals downthe twisting, turning and plunging course of the flume. Arrived safelyat the bottom, the eight-and twelve-horse teams should have taken themin charge, dragging them by the double wagon load to the waiting yardsof Marshall & Harding. Nothing of the sort was happening. Welton did notdare go ahead with the water for fear of prejudicing his own case. Thelumber accumulated. And, as the mill's capacity was great and that ofthe yards small, the accumulation soon threatened to becomeembarrassing.
Bob acted as Welton's lieutenant. As the older lumberman was at firstoccupied in testing out his sawyers, and otherwise supervising thefinished product, Bob was necessarily much in the woods. This suited himperfectly. Every morning at six he and the men tramped to the scene ofoperations. There a dozen crews scattered to as many tasks. Far in thevan the fellers plied their implements. First of all they determinedwhich way a tree could be made to fall, estimating long and carefully onthe weight of limbs, the slant of the trunk, the slope of ground, allthe elements having to do with the centre of gravity. This having beendetermined, the men next chopped notches of the right depth for theinsertion of short boards to afford footholds high enough to enable themto nick the tree above the swell of the roots. Standing on these springyand uncertain boards, they began their real work, swinging their axesalternately, with untiring patience and incomparable accuracy. Slowly,very slowly, the "nick" grew, a mouth gaping ever wider in the browntree. When it had gaped wide enough the men hopped down from theirspringboards, laid aside their axes, and betook themselves to the saw.And when, at last, the wedges inserted in the saw-crack started themighty top, the men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stoodto one side.
The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel andstood to one side]
After the dust had subsided, and the last reverberations of that mightycrash had ceased to reecho through the forest, the fellers steppedforward to examine their work. They took all things into consideration,such as old wind shakes, new decay, twist of grain and location of thelimbs. Then they measured off the prostrate trunk into logs of twelve,fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty feet, according to the bestexpediency. The division points between logs they notched plainly, and,shouldering their axes and their sledge and their long, limber saw,pocketing their wedges and their bottle of coal oil, they moved on towhere the next mighty pine had through all the centuries been awaitingtheir coming.
Now arrived on the scene the "swampers" and cross-cut men, swarming overthe prostrate tree like ants over a piece of sugar. Some of them cut offlimbs; others, with axes and crowbars, began to pry away great slabs ofbark; still others, with much precaution of shovel, wedge and axeagainst jamming, commenced the slow and laborious undertaking of sawingapart the logs.
But most interesting and complicated of all were the further processesof handling the great logs after they had been peeled and sawed.
The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the prostrate tree,where they were made fast by means of chains and hooks. Then the puffingand snorting donkey engine near the chute tightened the cable. The logstirred, moved, plunged its great blunt nose forward, ploughing up thesoil. Small trees and bushes it overrode. But sooner or later itcollided head on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder. The cablestrained. Men shouted or waved their arms in signal. The donkey engineceased coughing. Then the horse pulled the end of the log free. Behindit was left a deep trough, a half cylinder scooped from the soil.
At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train of cars. Amore powerful cable, endless, running to the mill and back again, heretook up the burden. At a certain point it was broken by two great hooks.One of these, the one in advance, the men imbedded in the rear log ofthe train. The other was dragged behind. Away from the chutes ten feetthe returning cable snapped through rude pulleys. The train of logsmoved forward slowly and steadily, sliding on the greased ways.
On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it heaved themighty timbers from the woods. The drag of the logs was sometimesheavier than the engine, so it had to be anchored by other cables tostrong trees. Between these opposing forces--the inertia of the rootedand the fallen--it leaped and trembled. At its throttle, underneath acanopy knocked together of rough boards, the engineer stood, ready fromone instant to another to shut off, speed up, or slow down, according tothe demands of an ever-changing exigence. His was a nervous job, and heearned his repose.
At the rear of the boiler a boy of eighteen toiled with an axe, choppinginto appropriate lengths the dead wood brought in for fuel. Next year itwould be possible to utilize old tops for this purpose, but now theywere too green. Another boy, in charge of a solemn mule, trampedceaselessly back and forth between the engine and a spring that had beendug out down the hill in a ravine. Before the end of that summer theyhad worn a trail so deep and hard and smooth that many seasons of snowfailed to obliterate it even from the soft earth. On either side themule were slung sacks of heavy canvas. At the spring the boy filledthese by means of a pail. Returned to the engine, he replenished theboiler, draining the sacks from the bottom, cast a fleeting glance atthe water gauge of the donkey engine, and hastened back to the spring.He had charge of three engines; and was busy.
And back along the line of the chutes were other men to fill out thiscrew of many activities--old men to signal; young men to stand by withslush brush, axe, or bar when things did not go well; axe-men withteams laying accurately new chutes into new country yet untouched.
Bob found plenty to keep him busy. Post, the woods foreman, was a goodchute man. By long experience he had gained practical knowledge of theproblems and accidents of this kind of work. To get the logs out fromthe beds in which they lay, across a rugged country, and into the millwas an engineering proposition of some moment. It is easy to get intodifficulties from which hours of work will not extricate.
But a man involved closely in the practical management of a saw log mayconceivably possess scant leisure to correlate the scattered efforts ofsuch divergent activities. The cross cutters and swampers may get aheadof the fellers and have to wait in idleness until the latter haveknocked down a tree. Or the donkey may fall silent from lack of logs tohaul; or the chute crews may smoke their pipes awaiting the donkey. Or,worst and unpardonable disgrace of all, the mill may ran out of logs!When that happens, the Old Fellow is usually pretty promptly on thescene.
Now it is obvious that if somewhere on the works ten men are al
wayswaiting--even though the same ten men are not thus idle over once aweek--the employer is paying for ten men too many. Bob found his bestactivity lay in seeing that this did not happen. He rode everywherereviewing the work; and he kept it shaken together. Thus he made himselfvery useful, he gained rapidly a working knowledge of this new kind oflogging, and, incidentally, he found his lines fallen in very pleasantplaces indeed.
The forest never lost its marvel to him, but after he had to some extentbecome accustomed to the immense trees, he began to notice the smalleraffairs of the woodland. The dogwoods and azaleas were beginning to comeout; the waxy, crimson snow plants were up; the tiny green meadows nearthe heads of streams were enamelled with flowers; hundreds of species ofbirds sang and flashed and scratched and crept and soared. The smalleranimals were everywhere. The sun at noon disengaged innumerable andsubtle tepid odours of pine and blossom.
One afternoon, a little less than a week subsequent to the beginning ofwork, Bob, riding home through the woods by a detour around a hill, cameupon sheep. They were scattered all over the hill, cropping busily atthe snowbush, moving ever slowly forward. A constant murmur arose, amurmur of a silent, quick, minute activity. Occasionally some motheramong them lifted her voice. Bob sat his horse looking silently on theshifting grays. In ten seconds his sight blurred; he experienced aslight giddiness as though the substantial ground were shifting beneathhim in masses, slowly, as in a dream. It gave him a curious feeling ofinstability. By an effort he focused his eyes; but almost immediately hecaught himself growing fuzzy-minded again, exactly as though he had beengazing absently for a considerable period at a very bright light. Heshook himself.
"I don't wonder sheep herders go dotty," said he aloud.
He looked about him, and for the first time became aware of a tow-headedyouth above him on the hill. The youth leaned on a staff, and at hisfeet crouched two long-haired dogs. Bob turned his horse in thatdirection.
When he had approached, he saw the boy to be about seventeen years old.His hair was very light, as were his eyebrows and eyelashes. Only adecided tinge of blue in his irises saved him from albinism. His lipswere thick and loose, his nose flat, his expression vacant. In contrast,the two dogs, now seated on their haunches, their heads to one side,their ears cocked up, their eyes bright, looked to be the moreintelligent animals.
"Good evening," said Bob.
The boy merely stared.
"You in charge of the sheep?" inquired the young man presently.
The boy grunted.
"Where are you camped?" persisted Bob.
No answer.
"Where's your boss?"
A faint gleam came into the sheep-herder's eyes. He raised his arm andpointed across through the woods.
Bob reined his horse in the direction indicated. As he passed the lastof the flock in that direction, he caught sight of another herder andtwo more dogs. This seemed to be a bearded man of better appearance thanthe boy; but he too leaned motionless on his long staff; he too gazedunblinking on the nibbling, restless, changing, imbecile sheep.
As Bob looked, this man uttered a shrill, long-drawn whistle. Likearrows from bows the two dogs darted away, their ears flat, their bodiesheld low to the ground. The whistle was repeated by the youth.Immediately his dogs also glided forward. The noise of quick, sharpbarkings was heard. At once the slow, shifting movement of the masses ofgray ceased. The sound of murmurous, deep-toned bells, of bleating, ofthe movement of a multitude arose. The flock drew to a common centre; itflowed slowly forward. Here and there the dark bodies of the dogsdarted, eager and intelligently busy. The two herders followed after,leaning on their long staffs. Over the hill passed the flock. Slowly thesounds of them merged into a murmur. It died. Only remained the fog ofdust drifting through the trees, caught up by every passing current ofair, light and impalpable as powder.
Bob continued on his way, but had not proceeded more than a few hundredfeet before he was overtaken by Lejeune.
"You're the man I was looking for," said Bob. "I see you got your sheepin all right. Have any trouble?"
The sheepman's teeth flashed.
"Not'tall," he replied. "I snik in ver' easy up by Beeg Rock."
At the mill, Bob, while luxuriously splashing the ice cold water on hisface and throat, took time to call to Welton in the next room.
"Saw your sheep man," he proffered. "He got in all right, sheep andall."
Welton appeared in the doorway, mopping his round, red face with atowel.
"Funny we haven't heard from Plant, then," said he. "That fat man mustbe keeping track of Leejune's where-abouts, or he's easier than Ithought he was."