manager, and I naturally felt that he would give
every bit of his attention to my business. I didn't know that he had
other schemes, and I didn't begin to get on to the fact until I started
losing contracts. That wasn't so long ago. Now I'm out here, and if
necessary, I'll stay here and be everything from manager to lumberjack,
to pull through."

"_Bon_! My Pierre, he would talk like that." Then the old man was
silent for a moment. "Old Ba'tiste, he has notice some things. He
will show you. Golemar! Whee!"

In answer to the whining call of the giant, the wolf-dog, trotting
beside the lazy team, swerved and nipped at the horses' heels. The
pace became a jogging trot. Soon they were in view of the long, smooth
mound of sawdust leading to the squat, rambling saw shed. A moment
more and the bunk house, its unpainted clapboards blackened by the rain
and sun and snows, showed ahead. A half-mile, then Ba'tiste left the
wagon and, Barry following him, walked toward the mill and its whining,
groaning saws.

"Watch close!" he ordered. "See ever'thing they do. Then remember.
Ba'tiste tell you about it when we come out."

Within they went, where hulking, strong-shouldered men were turning the
logs from the piles without, along the skidways and to the carriage of
the mill, their cant hooks working in smooth precision, their muscles
bulging as they rolled the great cylinders of wood into place, steadied
them, then stood aside until the carriages should shunt them toward the
sawyer and the tremendous, revolving wheel which was to convert them
into "board feet" of lumber. Hurrying "off-bearers", or slab-carriers,
white with sawdust, scampered away from the consuming saw, dragging the
bark and slab-sides to a smaller blade, there to be converted into
boiler fuel and to be fed to the crackling fire of the stationary
engine, far at one end of the mill. Leather belts whirred and slapped;
there was noise everywhere, except from the lips of men. For they,
these men of the forest, were silent, almost taciturn.

To Barry, it all seemed a smooth-working, perfectly aligned thing: the
big sixteen-foot logs went forward, rough, uncouth things, to be
dragged into the consuming teeth of the saw; then, through the sheer
force of the blade, pulled on until brownness became whiteness, the
cylindrical shape a lopsided thing with one long, glaring, white mark;
to be shunted back upon the automatic carriage, notched over for a
sec