for the
dining-room to get some sort of a lunch to do him until dinner time.
As he stepped from the door of the office he caught sight of two men
hurrying from the cook camp to the men's camp. He thought he heard the
hum of conversation in the latter building. The cookee set hot coffee
before him. For the rest, he took what he could find cold on the table.

On an inverted cracker box the cook sat reading an old copy of the
Police Gazette. Various fifty-pound lard tins were bubbling and steaming
on the range. The cookee divided his time between them and the task of
sticking on the log walls pleasing patterns made of illustrations
from cheap papers and the gaudy labels of canned goods. Dyer sat down,
feeling, for the first time, a little guilty. This was not because of a
sense of a dereliction in duty, but because he feared the strong man's
contempt for inefficiency.

"I sort of pounded my ear a little long this morning," he remarked with
an unwonted air of bonhomie.

The cook creased his paper with one hand and went on reading; the little
action indicating at the same time that he had heard, but intended to
vouchsafe no attention. The cookee continued his occupations.

"I suppose the men got out to the marsh on time," suggested Dyer, still
easily.

The cook laid aside his paper and looked the scaler in the eye.

"You're the foreman; I'm the cook," said he. "You ought to know."

The cookee had paused, the paste brush in his hand.

Dyer was no weakling. The problem presenting, he rose to the emergency.
Without another word he pushed back his coffee cup and crossed the
narrow open passage to the men's camp

When he opened the door a silence fell. He could see dimly that the room
was full of lounging and smoking lumbermen. As a matter of fact, not a
man had stirred out that morning. This was more for the sake of giving
Dyer a lesson than of actually shirking the work, for a lumber-jack is
honest in giving his time when it is paid for.

"How's this, men!" cried Dyer sharply; "why aren't you out on the
marsh?"

No one answered for a minute. Then Baptiste:

"He mak' too tam cole for de marsh. Meester Radway he spik dat we kip
off dat marsh w'en he mak' cole."

Dyer knew that the precedent was indisputable.

"Why didn't you cut on eight then?" he asked, still in peremptory tones.

"Didn't have no one to show us where to begin," drawled a voice in the
corner.

Dyer turned sharp on his heel and went out.

"S