That evening he picked out one of the best. As he was about to inquire
the price, Radway drew the van book toward him, inquiring,

"Let's see; what's the name?"

In an instant Thorpe was charged on the book with three dollars and a
half, although his work that day had earned him less than a dollar. On
his way back to the men's shanty he could not help thinking how easy it
would be for him to leave the next morning two dollars and a half ahead.
He wondered if this method of procedure obtained in all the camps.

The newcomer's first day of hard work had tired him completely. He was
ready for nothing so much as his bunk. But he had forgotten that it was
Saturday night. His status was still to assure.

They began with a few mild tricks. Shuffle the Brogan followed Hot Back.
Thorpe took all of it good-naturedly. Finally a tall individual with
a thin white face, a reptilian forehead, reddish hair, and long baboon
arms, suggested tossing in a blanket. Thorpe looked at the low ceiling,
and declined.

"I'm with the game as long as you say, boys," said he, "and I'll have as
much fun as anybody, but that's going too far for a tired man."

The reptilian gentleman let out a string of oaths whose meaning might be
translated, "We'll see about that!"

Thorpe was a good boxer, but he knew by now the lumber-jack's method
of fighting,--anything to hurt the other fellow. And in a genuine
old-fashioned knock-down-and-drag-out rough-and-tumble your woodsman is
about the toughest customer to handle you will be likely to meet. He
is brought up on fighting. Nothing pleases him better than to get drunk
and, with a few companions, to embark on an earnest effort to "clean
out" a rival town. And he will accept cheerfully punishment enough to
kill three ordinary men. It takes one of his kind really to hurt him.

Thorpe, at the first hostile movement, sprang back to the door, seized
one of the three-foot billets of hardwood intended for the stove, and
faced his opponents.

"I don't know which of you boys is coming first," said he quietly, "but
he's going to get it good and plenty."

If the affair had been serious, these men would never have recoiled
before the mere danger of a stick of hardwood. The American woodsman is
afraid of nothing human. But this was a good-natured bit of foolery,
a test of nerve, and there was no object in getting a broken head for
that. The reptilian gentleman alone grumbled at the abandonment of the
attack, m