CHAPTER XIV
THE MILLS
Dave obediently led the way out of the tally room to the great millingfloor, and at once they were in the heart of his world.
It was by no means new to Betty; she had seen it all before, but neverhad the mills been driven at such a pressure as now, and the sensationthe knowledge gave her was one which demanded the satisfaction ofoptical demonstration. She was thrilled with a sense of emergency. Theroar of the machinery carried with it a meaning it had never heldbefore. There was a current of excitement in the swift, skilfulmovements of the sawyers as they handled the mighty logs.
To her stirred imagination there was a suggestion of superhuman agency,of some nether world, in the yellow light of the flares which lit thatvast sea of moving rollers. As she gazed out across it at the dim,distant corners she felt as though at any moment the machinery mightsuddenly become manned by hundreds of hideous gnomes, such as she hadread of in the fairy tales. Yet it was all real, real and human, andDave was the man who controlled, whose brain and eyes watched overevery detail, whose wonderful skill and power were carrying thatcolossal work to the goal of success. As she looked, she sighed. Sheenvied the man whose genius had made all this possible.
Above the roar Dave's voice reached her.
"This is only part of it," he said; "come below."
And she followed him to the spiral iron staircase which led to thefloor below. Her uncle brought up the rear.
At ordinary times the lower part of the mills was given over to theshops for the manufacture of smaller lumber, building stuff, doors andwindows, flooring, and tongue and groove. Betty knew this. She knewevery shop by heart, just as she knew most of the workmen by sight. Butnow it was all changed. The partitions had been torn down, and thewhole thrown into one floor. It was a replica of the milling floorabove.
Here again were the everlasting rollers; here again were the tremendouslogs traveling across and across the floor; here again were the roarand shriek of the gleaming saws. The girl's enthusiasm rose. Her eyeswandered from the fascinating spectacle to the giant at her side. Shefelt a lump rise in her throat; she wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry;but she did neither. Only her eyes shone as she gazed at him; and hisplainness seemed to fall from him. She saw the man standing at herside, but the great ungainly Dave had gone, leaving in his place onlysuch a hero as her glowing heart could create.
They stood there watching, watching. None of the three spoke. None ofthem had any words. Dave saw and thought. His great unimaginative headhad no care for the picture side of it. His eyes were on the sawyers,most of them stripped to the waist in the heat of their labors in thesummer night. To him the interest of the scene lay in the precision andregularity with which log followed log over the rollers, and the skillwith which they were cut.
Parson Tom, with a little more imagination, built up in his mind thefuture prosperity of their beloved valley, and thanked the AlmightyProvidence that It had sent them such a man as Dave. But Betty, inspite of her practical brain, lost sight of all the practical side ofthe work. As she watched she was living in such a dream as only comesonce in a lifetime to any woman. At that moment her crown of glory wasset upon Dave's rough head. All she had hoped for, striven for all herlife seemed so small at the thought of him. And the delight of thosemoments became almost painful. She had always looked upon him as "herDave," her beloved "chum," her adviser, her prop to lean on at alltimes. But no. No, no; he was well and truly named. He was no one'sDave. He was just Dave of the Mills.
They moved on to a small doorway, and passing along a protected gallerythey worked their way toward the "boom." The place was a vast backwaterof the river, enlarged to accommodate millions of feet of logs. It waspacked with a mass of tumbled lumber, over which, in the dim lightthrown by waste fire, a hundred and more "jacks" could be seen,clambering like a colony of monkeys, pushing, prizing, easing, pullingwith their peaveys to get the logs freed, so that the grappling tacklecould seize and haul them up out of the water to the milling floorsabove.
Here again they paused and silently gazed at the stupendous work goingon. There was no more room for wonder either in the girl or her uncle.The maximum had been reached. They could only silently stare.
Dave was the first to move. His keen eyes had closely watched the work.He had seen log after log fly up in the grapple of the hydrauliccranes, he had seen them shot into the gaping jaws of the building, hehad seen that not an idle hand was down there in the boom, and he wassatisfied. Now he wanted to go on.
"There's the 'waste,'" he said casually. "But I guess you've seen thatheaps, only it's a bit bigger now, and we've had to build two more'feeders.'"
Betty answered him, and her tone was unusually subdued.
"Let's see it all, Dave," she said, almost humbly.
All her imperiousness had gone, and in its place was an ecstatic desireto see all and anything that owed its existence to this man.
Dave strode on. He was quite unconscious of the change that had takenplace in Betty's thoughts of him. To him these things had becomeevery-day matters of his work. They meant no more to him than thestepping-stones toward success which every one who makes forachievement has to tread.
Their way took them up another iron staircase outside the mainbuilding. At the top of it was an iron gallery, which passed round twoangles of the mill, and terminated at the three feeders, stretching outfrom the mills to the great waste fire a hundred yards away. From thisgallery there was an inspiring view of the "everlasting" fire. It hadbeen lit when the mill first started its operations years ago, and hadbeen burning steadily ever since; and so it would go on burning as longas the saws inside continued to rip the logs.
The feeders were three shafts, supported on iron trestle work, eachcarrying an ever-moving, endless bed on which the waste trimmings ofthe logs were thrown. These were borne upward and outward for a hundredyards till the shafts hung high above the blazing mass. Here theendless band doubled under, and its burden was precipitated below,where it was promptly devoured by the insatiable flames.
For some moments they watched the great timber pass on its way to thefire, and so appalling appeared the waste that Parson Tom protested.
"This seems to me positively wanton," he said. "Why, the stuff you'resending on to that fire is perfect lumber. At the worst, what grandfuel it would make for the villagers."
Dave nodded his great head. He often felt the same about it.
"Makes you sicken some to see it go, doesn't it?" he said regretfully."It does me. But say, we've got a waste yard full, and the folks inMalkern are welcome to all they can haul away. Even Mary uses it in herstoves, but they can't haul or use it fast enough. If it wasn't forthis fire there wouldn't be room for a rat in Malkern inside a year.Guess it's got to be, more's the pity."
There was no more to be said, and the three watched the fire in silentawe. It was a marvelous sight. The dull red-yellow light shone luridlyover everything. The mill on the one hand loomed majestically out ofthe dark background of night. The fire, over forty feet in height, litthe buildings in a curious, uncanny fashion, throwing grotesque andlurid shadows in every direction. Then all around, on the farthersides, spread the distant dark outline of ghostly pine woods, whosenative gloom resisted a light, which, by contrast, was soinsignificantly artificial. It gave a weird impression that had astrong effect upon Betty's rapt imagination.
Dave again broke the spell. He could not spare too much time, and, asthey moved away, Betty sighed.
"It's all very, very wonderful," she said, moving along at his side."And to think even in winter, no matter what the snowfall, that firenever goes out."
Dave laughed.
"If it rained like it's been raining to-day for six months," he said,"I don't guess it could raise more than a splutter." Then he turned toTom Chepstow. "Is there anything else you'd like to see? You've gotthree hours to midnight."
But the parson had seen enough; and as he had yet to overhaul thesupplies he was to take up to the hill camps, th
ey made their way backto the tally room. At the rollers on which Mansell was working Davepaused with Betty, while her uncle went on.
They watched a great log appear at the opening over the boom. Thechains of the hydraulic crane creaked under their burden. Dave pointedat it silhouetted against the light of the waste fire beyond.
"Watch him," he said. "That's Dick Mansell."
The pride in his tone was amply justified. Mansell was at the opening,waiting, peavey in hand. They saw the log dripping and swaying as itwas hauled up until its lower end cleared the rollers. On the instantthe sawyer leant forward and plunged his hook into the soft pine bark.Then he strained steadily and the log came slowly onward. A whistle,and the crane was eased an inch at a time. The man held his strain, andthe end lowered ever further over the rollers until it touched. Twomore whistles, and the log was lowered faster until it lay exactlyhorizontal, and then the rollers carried it in. Once its balance waspassed, the sawyer struck the grappling chains loose with his peavey,and, with a rattle, they fell clear, while the prostrate giant lumberedponderously into the mill.
It was all done so swiftly.
Now Mansell sprang to the foremost end and chalked the log as ittraveled. Then, like a cat, he sprang to the rear of it and measuredwith his eye. Dissatisfied, he ran to its side and prized it into afresh position, glancing down it, much as a rifleman might glance overhis sights. Satisfied at length, he ran on ahead of the moving log tohis saws. Throwing over a lever, he quickened the pace of the gleamingblade. On came the log. The yielding wood met the merciless fangs ofthe saw upon the chalk line, and passed hissing and shrieking on itsway as though it had met with no obstruction.
The girl took a deep breath.
"Splendid," she cried. Well as she knew this work, to-night it appealedto her with a new force, a deeper and more personal interest.
"Easy as pie," Dave laughed. Then more seriously, "Yet it's dangerousas--as hell."
Betty nodded. She knew.
"But you don't have many accidents, thank goodness."
Dave shrugged.
"Not many--considering. But you don't often see a sawyer with perfectlysound hands. There's generally something missing."
"I know. Look at Mansell's arm there." Betty pointed at a deep furrowon the man's forearm.
"Yes, Mansell's been through it. I remember when he got that. Like anIndian holds his first scalp as a sign of his prowess, or the knightsof old wore golden spurs as an emblem of their knighthood, the sawyerminus a finger or so has been literally 'through the mill,' and canclaim proficiency in his calling. But those are not the dangers I wasfiggering on."
Betty waited for him to go on.
"Yes," he said solemnly. "It's the breaking saw. That's the terror of asawyer's life. And just now of mine. It's always in the back of my headlike a black shadow. One breaking saw would do more damage cutting upthis big stuff than it would take a fire to do in an hour. It would bethe next best thing to bursting a charge of dynamite. Take this saw ofMansell's. A break, a bend out of the truth, the log slips while it'sbeing cut. Any of these things. You wouldn't think a 'ninety-footer'could be thrown far. If any of those things happened, good-bye toanything or anybody with whom it came into contact. But we needn't toworry. Let's get in there to your uncle."