Chapter XV: Hurley Prepares for the Drive

The two camps on Dogfish hummed with activity. Both Saginaw Ed and Slue Foot Magee had their crews "laying 'em down" with an efficiency that delighted the heart of Hurley, who came into the little office of Camp One after an inspection of the rollways, fairly radiating approval and good humour. That evening around the roaring stove the big walking boss lighted his pipe, and tilting back in his chair, contentedly wriggled his toes in the woollen socks, cocked comfortably upon the edge of his bunk, the while he held forth upon the merits of his crews to Lon Camden and Saginaw Ed and Connie Morgan who shared the quarters with him:

"The best crews ever went into the woods!" he began, "barrin' none. I've logged from Westconsin to the coast, an' never I seen the like. It's partly because the men is doin' what they never thought to be doin' again--layin' down white pine. An' it's partly the bosses, an' the cook, an' the scaler, an' the clerk. I'll show the owner a profit this year that'll make him fergit last year's loss like a busted shoestring. I've twict as many logs on the rollways of each camp as I had altogether last year."

Lon Camden shook his head: "Yeh, that's so, Hurley, but logs on the rollways ain't logs at the mills. Ye had enough banked along the river last year to show a good profit--an' ye can bet yer last dollar the Syndicate's foulin' our drive wasn't no accident."

"But our brands was on the logs," insisted Hurley. "Even the Syndicate wouldn't dare to saw branded logs."

The scaler shook his head doubtfully: "I do'no, boss, some one sawed 'em. To my certain knowledge there was better than two million feet on the landin's when we broke 'em out--an' two million feet of white pine ort to showed a good profit."

Hurley nodded, glumly: "Sure it ort," he agreed. "I seen the logs myself on the rollways, an' when they got to the mills, the boom scale was--" The big boss paused and scratched his head thoughtfully, "--well, I ain't got no noodle fer figgers, an' I disremember jest what it was, but it was short enough so it et up the profits an' handed us a fourteen-thousan'-dollar loss, or thereabouts. An' me with the owner way up in Alasky, an' thinkin' mebbe I done him out of his money. 'Twas a long head I had when I stuck out fer a two-year contrack, an' this year if we don't roll eight million feet in the river my name ain't Jake Hurley!"

"Yes," broke in Saginaw Ed, "an' if we make the same rate of loosin', the loss this year'll figger somewheres up around fifty thousan'."

Hurley's eyes grew hard "They ain't a-goin' to be no loss this year!" he replied savagely. "The Syndicate had more logs in Dogfish than me last year, an' a bigger crew, an' more white-water birlers amongst 'em, so Long Leaf Olson, the foreman of the Syndicate camp, ordered me to take the rear drive. I tuk it--an' be the time I'd got through cardin' the ledges, an' sackin' the bars, an' shovin' off jill-pokes, the main drive was sorted an' the logs in the logans, an' I was handed me boom scale at the mills. But, this year it's different. I'll have agin as many logs as them, an' two crews, an' when we git to the mills I'll have men of my own at the sortin' gap."

"If they was dams on Dogfish the rear drive wouldn't be so bad," opined Saginaw.

"If they was dams on Dogfish, we'd be worse off than ever," growled Hurley, "because the Syndicate would own the dams, an' we'd stand a fat show of sluicin' anything through 'em. No sir! We'll go out with the ice, an' me on the head of the drive, an' if Long Leaf fouls us, I won't be carin'. I see through the game he done me last year--keepin' me on the rear, an' it worked like this: Dogfish runs out with a rush an' then falls as quick as it run out. All the logs that ain't into the big river on the run-out is left fer the rear drive, an', believe me, we had a plenty dry-rollin' to do. For why? Because that thievin' Long Leaf nipped every jam before it started, an' left me with a month's work gittin' the stranded logs out of Dogfish. This year, it'll be me that's boss of the main drive, an' if a jam starts I'll let 'em pile up--an' I'll see that one starts, too--that'll back the water up behind 'em an' give the rear plenty of river to float down on, then when everything's caught up, I'll put some canned thunder in under her an' away we go to the next jam."

"Ye' talk like ye could jam 'em whenever ye wanted to," said Lon Camden.

Hurley regarded him gravely: "It's twenty-three miles from here to the big river. There'll be a jam ten miles below here, an' another, one mile above the mouth." The three stared at him in surprise. "You see," the boss continued, with evident satisfaction in their astonishment, "when I got the boom scale last summer, it turned me sick. I made out me report an' sent it to Alasky, an' then I went home to Pine Hook an' hoed me garden a day, an' put in the next one choppin' firewood. It was after supper that day an' the kiddies to bed, the wife comes out to where I was an' sets down on the choppin' log beside me. I smokes me pipe, an' don't pay her no mind, 'cause I was sore in the heart of me. After while she lays a hand on the sleeve of me shirt. 'Jake,' she says, 'all the winter an' spring the childer gabbles about the fun they'll be havin' when daddy comes home.'" The man paused and grinned, slyly. "It's like a woman to begin at the backwards of a thing an' work up to the front. I bet when one gits to heaven it'll be the health of Adam an' Eve they'll be inquirin' about furst, instead of John L. Sullivan, roight out. Anyway, that's what she says, an' I replies in the negative by sayin' nothin'. 'An' here you be'n home two days,' she goes on, an' stops, like they's enough be'n said.

"'An' I've hoed the garden, an' cut the firewood,' says I. 'What would you be havin' me do?'" Again Hurley grinned: "I dropped a match in the bung of an empty gasoline bar'l onct, that had laid in the sun behind the store, thinkin' to see if it would make a good rain bar'l. It didn't. Part of it made fair kindlin's, though, an' I was out an' around in a week. Giant powder, gasoline, an' wimmin is all safe enough if ye don't handle 'em careless--but, if ye do, ye git quick action--an' plenty of it.

"'Do!' she says, in the same tone of voice used by the gasoline bar'l that day. 'Well, if you can't think of nothin' else to do, give the poor darlints a beatin' just to let 'em know you're around!' Then she gits up an' starts fer the house." Hurley held a match to his pipe and puffed deeply for a few moments, "I never believed much in signs," he grinned, "but they's some signs I heed--so I laughed. The laugh come from the throat only, an' not from the heart, an' at the sound of it she turned, an' then she come back slow an' set down agin on the choppin' log. 'Tell me what's wrong, Jake,' she says. 'Two kin carry a load better than one.' So I up an' told her, an' she set for quite a while an' looked out over the slashin'.

"'Is that all?' she says, after a bit. 'Is that what ye've be'n hoein' an' choppin' over fer two days, an' gittin' madder with every whack--an' not payin' no heed to the important things that's been pilin' up to be done.' 'What's to be done?' says I, 'if it ain't the wood an' the garden?' 'It's the first time ye ever come back from the woods an' didn't see fer yerself what's to be done,' she says. 'With two wheels busted off Jimmy's tote wagon, an' Paddy's logs in the crick an' on his landin's waitin' fer daddy to show him how to build his dam an' sluice, an' Jimmy with the timber all out fer his Injun stockade, an' waitin' fer daddy to tell him does the logs go in crossways or up an' down!'

"So the next week I put in loggin' on the crick behind the pig pen. We put in a dam an' sluice, an' run a season's cut through, an' sorted 'em an' boomed 'em, an even rigged a goat-power saw-mill that would jerk the logs out of the crick but wouldn't cut 'em. An' by gosh, when the week was gone I had some good schemes in me own head, an' takin' five men with me, I went off up Dogfish an' studied the stream, an' this spring they'll be jams where I want jams! An' I'm the bucko that'll be on the head end, an' I'll bust 'em when I want to!"

"You ain't obstructed navigation, have ye?" asked Lon, with concern. "Cause if you have the Syndicate'll take it up in a minute, an' they'll law ye out of ten seasons' profit. Buckin' the Syndicate has cost many a little feller his pile. If they can't steal ye poor, they'll law ye poor--an' it's the same thing fer the small operator."

"Never you fret about the lawin', Lon. What I an' me five hearties put into Dogfish last summer looks like drift piles from a summer rain, an' the same charge of canned thunder that busts the jam will blow the log-an' rock foundations of the drift piles to smithereens."

Lon smoked in silence for a few moments, as though pondering the boss's words, and as he smoked his lips gradually expanded into a grin of approval. Hurley noted the smile: "An' it all come of me workin' out the problems of a six-year old kid on the little crick behind the pig pen. An' what's more, I've got some of the problems of the big river more clear in me noodle."

Saginaw Ed winked at Connie; and leaning over, whispered into the boy's ear: "Hurley's done a smart thing," he confided, "an' it'll hurry the drive out of Dogfish. But he ain't got to the meat of the trouble--an' that's up to you an' me."

As the season progressed Hurley had increased his crews until each numbered one hundred and twenty-five men, and the daily work of these men was an unceasing source of interest to Connie. Every moment that could be spared from his duties, the boy was out among them, swinging an axe with the swampers, riding the huge loads of logs that slipped smoothly over the iced log roads on their trips to the landings, standing beside Lon Camden as he scaled the incoming loads, or among the sawyers, watching some mighty pine crash to earth with a roar of protest.

"I never seen a clerk before that ye could prize away from the office stove with a pickpole," remarked Lon Camdon, one day, as he and Hurley watched the boy riding toward them balanced upon the top log of a huge load.

"He'll know more about loggin' be spring," replied the boss, "than many an' old lumberjack. It's the makin' of a fine boss the kid has."

"He kin scale as good as me, a'ready," admitted Lon. "An' that other kid, too--why just from trottin' 'round with this one he's got so he shows some real stuff. If ever I picked a kid fer a bad egg it was him."

"Me too," admitted Hurley. "But Connie stuck up for him, even after he'd throw'd in with the I. W. W's. Steve kin have anything I've got," he added, after a pause. "He saved me life, an' after the drive I'm goin' to take him home with me up to Pine Hook, instead of turnin' him loose to go to the bad around such dumps as Corky Dyer's where I picked him up. He'd got a wrong start. It's like he was follerin' a log road, an' got switched off onto a cross-haul--but, he's back on the main road again, an' it's Jake Hurley'll keep him there."

"He's all right, an' the men like him--but he ain't got the head the other one has."

"Sure he ain't!" agreed Hurley. "You kin take it from me, Lon, before that there Connie is thirty, he'll be ownin' timber of his own."

"I'd almost bet money on it," said Saginaw Ed, who had come up in time to hear Hurley's prophecy. "Say boss, them irons come in fer the cook's bateau; I expect we better put to work on it. Month from now, an' we'll be listenin' night an' day fer the boomin' of the ice."

The boss assented: "Hop to it, fer we don't want no delay when this drive starts."

Saginaw turned toward the blacksmith shop to give his orders regarding the scow, in which the cook would follow the drive and furnish hot meals for the rivermen. His eye fell upon Connie as the boy slid from the load: "Better get over to the office, son," he grinned. "Slue Foot's over there just a-meltin' the snow, 'cause you ain't around to sell him a plug of terbacker." The boy joined him, and Saginaw cast a look at the rollways: "Lots of logs on the landin's, son," he remarked.

"Seven million, three hundred thousand feet, up to last night," said the boy proudly. "Everything looks fine."

"Fine as frog hair, son--which some folks holds is too fine to last."

"What do you mean?"

"Well nothin' that I could name--only, what you said about Slue Foot's bein' mixed up with the I. W. W. It's like I told you, them birds gits jobs just so they kin git a chanct to distroy property. They don't want to work, an' they don't want no one else to work. We caught three of 'em tryin' to burn the stables, which is about their size, an' if the sheriff served Doc's warrants, I guess they're in jail now. But how do we know that them three was _all_ the I. W. W.'s in the outfit? An' how do we know that Slue Foot ain't plottin' some move that'll put a crimp in us somehow er other?"

The boy smiled: "I've thought of that, too," he answered. "But I don't think there is much danger from the I. W. W.'s. I've been watching Slue Foot, and I know that he's not going to start anything. He was glad to get those I. W. W.'s off the works. You see he's got a fish of his own to fry. He belongs to the I. W. W. just because it's natural for him to throw in with crooks and criminals, but he's so crooked himself that he won't even play square with his gang of crooks. He saw a chance to make some crooked money for himself, so he threw his friends over. We're all right, because the more logs we put into the river the bigger his graft is. And we've got him right where we want him. We can nail him in a minute, if we want to, for swiping the old Irishman's money--but I don't want to spring that unless I have to until I get the goods on the Syndicate."

Saginaw nodded: "I guess that's good dope, all right. But, if I was you, I'd git a line on his scheme as soon as I could. You can't never tell what'll happen in the woods--an' when it does, it's most generally always somethin' different."

As the boy continued his way to the office, after parting from Saginaw at the blacksmith shop, he decided to carry out Saginaw's suggestion at once. In fact, for a week or ten days Connie had been watching for an opportunity to force Slue Foot to show his hand. And now he decided, the time had come. There was no one in sight; the boss of Camp Two had evidently gone into the office.