stood a big round table over which glowed two hanging lamps. The table
was littered with papers and magazines. Home life was still further
suggested by a canary bird in a gilt cage, a sleepy cat, and two pots of
red geraniums. Thorpe had further imported a washerwoman who dwelt in a
separate little cabin under the hill. She washed the men's belongings at
twenty-five cents a week, which amount Thorpe deducted from each
man's wages, whether he had the washing done or not. This encouraged
cleanliness. Phil scrubbed out every day, while the men were in the
woods.

Such was Thorpe's famous Camp One in the days of its splendor. Old
woodsmen will still tell you about it, with a longing reminiscent
glimmer in the corners of their eyes as they recall its glories and the
men who worked in it. To have "put in" a winter in Camp One was the
mark of a master; and the ambition of every raw recruit to the forest.
Probably Thorpe's name is remembered to-day more on account of the
intrepid, skillful, loyal men his strange genius gathered about it,
than for the herculean feat of having carved a great fortune from the
wilderness in but five years' time.

But Camp One was a privilege. A man entered it only after having proved
himself; he remained in it only as long as his efficiency deserved the
honor. Its members were invariably recruited from one of the other four
camps; never from applicants who had not been in Thorpe's employ. A raw
man was sent to Scotty, or Jack Hyland, or Radway, or Kerlie. There he
was given a job, if he happened to suit, and men were needed. By and by,
perhaps, when a member of Camp One fell sick or was given his time, Tim
Shearer would send word to one of the other five that he needed an axman
or a sawyer, or a loader, or teamster, as the case might be. The best
man in the other camps was sent up.

So Shearer was foreman of a picked crew. Probably no finer body of men
was ever gathered at one camp. In them one could study at his best
the American pioneer. It was said at that time that you had never seen
logging done as it should be until you had visited Thorpe's Camp One on
the Ossawinamakee.

Of these men Thorpe demanded one thing--success. He tried never to ask
of them anything he did not believe to be thoroughly possible; but he
expected always that in some manner, by hook or crook, they would
carry the affair through. No matter how good the excuse, it was never
accepted. Accidents would happen, there as el