Big Timber | Page 6

look after you."
Benton laughed tolerantly.
"Perhaps. But, my dear girl, a fellow doesn't get anywhere on his
appearance in this country. When a fellow's bucking big timber, he
shucks off a lot of things he used to think were quite essential. By Jove,
you're a picture, Stell. If I hadn't been expecting to see you, I wouldn't
have known you."
"I doubt if I should have known you either," she returned drily.
CHAPTER II
MR. ABBEY ARRIVES
Stella accompanied her brother to the store, where he gave an order for
sundry goods. Then they went to the hotel to see if her trunks had
arrived. Within a few yards of the fence which enclosed the grounds of
St. Allwoods a man hailed Benton, and drew him a few steps aside.
Stella walked slowly on, and presently her brother joined her.
The baggage wagon had brought the trunks, and when she had paid her
bill, they were delivered at the outer wharf-end, where also arrived at
about the same time a miscellaneous assortment of supplies from the
store and a Japanese with her two handbags. So far as Miss Estella
Benton could see, she was about to embark on the last stage of her
journey.

"How soon will you start?" she inquired, when the last of the stuff was
stowed aboard the little steamer.
"Twenty minutes or so," Benton answered. "Say," he went on casually,
"have you got any money, Stell? I owe a fellow thirty dollars, and I left
the bank roll and my check book at camp."
Miss Benton drew the purse from her hand bag and gave it to him. He
pocketed it and went off down the wharf, with the brief assurance that
he would be gone only a minute or so.
The minute, however, lengthened to nearly an hour, and Sam Davis had
his blow-off valve hissing, and Stella Benton was casting impatient
glances shoreward before Charlie strolled leisurely back.
"You needn't fire up quite so strong, Sam," he called down. "We won't
start for a couple of hours yet."
"Sufferin' Moses!" Davis poked his fiery thatch out from the engine
room. "I might 'a' known better'n to sweat over firin' up. You generally
manage to make about three false starts to one get-away."
Benton laughed good-naturedly and turned away.
"Do you usually allow your men to address you in that impertinent
way?" Miss Benton desired to know.
Charlie looked blank for a second. Then he smiled, and linking his arm
affectionately in hers, drew her off along the wharf, chuckling to
himself.
"My dear girl," said he, "you'd better not let Sam Davis or any of Sam's
kind hear you pass remarks like that. Sam would say exactly what he
thought about such matters to his boss, or King George, or to the first
lady of the land, regardless. Sabe? We're what you'll call primitive out
here, yet. You want to forget that master and man business, the servant
proposition, and proper respect, and all that rot. Outside the English
colonies in one or two big towns, that attitude doesn't go in B.C. People

in this neck of the woods stand pretty much on the same class footing,
and you'll get in bad and get me in bad if you don't remember that. I've
got ten loggers working for me in the woods. Whether they're
impertinent or profane cuts no figure so long as they handle the job
properly. They're men, you understand, not servants. None of them
would hesitate to tell me what he thinks about me or anything I do. If I
don't like it, I can fight him or fire him. They won't stand for the sort of
airs you're accustomed to. They have the utmost respect for a woman,
but a man is merely a two-legged male human like themselves, whether
he wears mackinaws or broadcloth, has a barrel of money of none at all.
This will seem odd to you at first, but you'll get used to it. You'll find
things rather different out here."
"I suppose so," she agreed. "But it sounds queer. For instance, if one of
papa's clerks or the chauffeur had spoken like that, he'd have been
discharged on the spot."
"The logger's a different breed," Benton observed drily. "Or perhaps
only the same breed manifesting under different conditions. He isn't
servile. He doesn't have to be."
"Why the delay, though?" she reverted to the point. "I thought you were
all ready to go."
"I am," Charlie enlightened. "But while I was at the store just now, Paul
Abbey 'phoned from Vancouver to know if there was an up-lake boat in.
His people are big lumber guns here, and it will accommodate him and
won't hurt me to wait a couple of hours and drop him off