The Blazed Trail | Page 8

and even. So Mike cut a short
thick block, and all three stirred the heavy timber sufficiently to admit
of the billet's insertion.
Then the chain was thrown down for another.
Jenny, harnessed only to a straight short bar with a hook in it, leaned to
her collar and dug in her hoofs at the word of command. The driver,
close to her tail, held fast the slender steel chain by an ingenious hitch
about the ever-useful swamp-hook. When Jim shouted "whoa!" from
the top of the skidway, the driver did not trouble to stop the horse,--he
merely let go the hook. So the power was shut off suddenly, as is meet
and proper in such ticklish business. He turned and walked back, and
Jenny, like a dog, without the necessity of command, followed him in
slow patience.
Now came Dyer, the scaler, rapidly down the logging road, a small
slender man with a little, turned-up mustache. The men disliked him
because of his affectation of a city smartness, and because he never ate
with them, even when there was plenty of room. Radway had
confidence in him because he lived in the same shanty with him. This
one fact a good deal explains Radway's character. The scaler's duty at
present was to measure the diameter of the logs in each skidway, and so
compute the number of board feet. At the office he tended van, kept the
books, and looked after supplies.
He approached the skidway swiftly, laid his flexible rule across the face
of each log, made a mark on his pine tablets in the column to which the
log belonged, thrust the tablet in the pocket of his coat, seized a blue

crayon, in a long holder, with which he made an 8 as indication that the
log had been scaled, and finally tapped several times strongly with a
sledge hammer. On the face of the hammer in relief was an M inside of
a delta. This was the Company's brand, and so the log was branded as
belonging to them. He swarmed all over the skidway, rapid and
absorbed, in strange contrast of activity to the slower power of the
actual skidding. In a moment he moved on to the next scene of
operations without having said a word to any of the men.
"A fine t'ing!" said Mike, spitting.
So day after day the work went on. Radway spent his time tramping
through the woods, figuring on new work, showing the men how to do
things better or differently, discussing minute expedients with the
blacksmith, the carpenter, the cook.
He was not without his troubles. First he had not enough men; the snow
lacked, and then came too abundantly; horses fell sick of colic or
caulked themselves; supplies ran low unexpectedly; trees turned out
"punk"; a certain bit of ground proved soft for travoying, and so on. At
election-time, of course, a number of the men went out.
And one evening, two days after election-time, another and important
character entered the North woods and our story.
Chapter III
On the evening in question, some thirty or forty miles southeast of
Radway's camp, a train was crawling over a badly laid track which led
towards the Saginaw Valley. The whole affair was very crude. To the
edge of the right-of-way pushed the dense swamp, like a black curtain
shutting the virgin country from the view of civilization. Even by
daylight the sight could have penetrated but a few feet. The
right-of-way itself was rough with upturned stumps, blackened by fire,
and gouged by many and varied furrows. Across the snow were tracks
of animals.
The train consisted of a string of freight cars, one coach divided half

and half between baggage and smoker, and a day car occupied by two
silent, awkward women and a child. In the smoker lounged a dozen
men. They were of various sizes and descriptions, but they all wore
heavy blanket mackinaw coats, rubber shoes, and thick German socks
tied at the knee. This constituted, as it were, a sort of uniform. The air
was so thick with smoke that the men had difficulty in distinguishing
objects across the length of the car.
The passengers sprawled in various attitudes. Some hung their legs
over the arms of the seats; others perched their feet on the backs of the
seats in front; still others slouched in corners, half reclining. Their
occupations were as diverse. Three nearest the baggage-room door
attempted to sing, but without much success. A man in the corner
breathed softly through a mouth organ, to the music of which his seat
mate, leaning his head sideways, gave close attention. One big fellow
with a square beard swaggered back and forth down the aisle offering
to everyone refreshment from a quart bottle.