Blazed Trail Stories, and Stories of the Wild Life Part 4

"I am your scaler," explained the latter. "Where is the office?"

"You can have the bunk beyand," indicated the Rough Red, surlily.

"You have no office then?"

"What's good enough fer th' men is good enough for a boss; and what's good enough fer th' boss is good enough fer any blank blanked scaler."

"It is not good enough for this one," replied FitzPatrick, calmly. "I have no notion of sleepin' and workin' in no such noise an' dirt. I need an office to keep me books and th' van. Not a log do I scale for ye, Jimmy Bourke, till you give me a fit place to tally in."

And so it came about, though the struggle lasted three days. The Rough Red stormed restlessly between the woods and the camp, delivering tremendous broadsides of oaths and threats. FitzPatrick sat absolutely imperturbable on the deacon-seat, looking straight in front of him, his legs stretched comfortably aslant, one hand supporting the elbow of the other, which in turn held his short brier pipe.

"Good-mornin' to ye, Jimmy Bourke," said he each morning, and after that uttered no word until the evening, when it was, "Good-night to ye, Jimmy Bourke," with a final _rap, rap, rap_ of his pipe.

The cook, a thin-faced, sly man, with a penchant for the _Police Gazette_, secretly admired him.

"Luk' out for th' Rough Red; he'll do ye!" he would whisper hoa.r.s.ely when he pa.s.sed the silent scaler.

But in the three days the Rough Red put his men to work on a little cabin. FitzPatrick at once took his scaling-rule from the corner and set out into the forest.

His business was, by measuring the diameter of each log, to ascertain and tabulate the number of board feet put in by the contractor. On the basis of his single report James Bourke would be paid for the season's work. Inevitably he at once became James Bourke's natural enemy, and so of every man in the crew with the possible exception of the cook.

Suppose you log a knoll which your eye tells you must grow at least a half-million; suppose you work conscientiously for twelve days; suppose your average has always been between forty and fifty thousand a day. And then suppose the scaler's sheets credit you with only a little over the four hundred thousand! What would you think of it? Would you not be inclined to suspect that the scaler had cheated you in favour of his master? that you had been compelled by false figures to work a day or so for nothing?

FitzPatrick scaled honestly, for he was a just man, but exact.i.tude and optimism of estimate never have approximated, and they did not in this case. The Rough Red grumbled, accused, swore, threatened. FitzPatrick smoked "Peerless," and said nothing. Still it was not pleasant for him, alone there in the dark wilderness fifty miles from the nearest settlement, without a human being with whom to exchange a friendly word.

The two men early came to a clash over the methods of cutting. The Rough Red and his crew cut anywhere, everywhere, anyhow. The easiest way was theirs. Small timber they skipped, large timber they sawed high, tops they left rather than trim them into logs. FitzPatrick would not have the pine "slaughtered."

"Ye'll bend your backs a little, Jimmy Bourke," said he, "and cut th'

stumps lower to th' ground. There's a bunch of s.h.i.+ngles at least in every stump ye've left. And you must saw straighter. And th' contract calls for eight inches and over; mind ye that. Don't go to skippin' th'

little ones because they won't scale ye high. 'Tis in the contract so.

And I won't have th' tops left. There's many a good log in them, an' ye trim them fair and clean."

"Go to h.e.l.l, you--" shouted the Rough Red. "Where th' blazes did ye learn so much of loggin'? I log th' way me father logged, an' I'm not to be taught by a high-banker from th' Muskegon!"

Never would he acknowledge the wrong nor promise the improvement, but both were there, and both he and FitzPatrick knew it. The Rough Red chafed frightfully, but in a way his hands were tied. He could do nothing without the report; and it was too far out to send for another scaler, even if Daly would have given him one.

Finally in looking over a skidway he noticed that one log had not been blue-pencilled across the end. That meant that it had not been scaled; and that in turn meant that he, the Rough Red, would not be paid for his labour in cutting and banking it. At once he began to bellow through the woods.

"Hey! FitzPatrick! Come here, you blank-blanked-blank of a blank! Come here!"

The sealer swung leisurely down the travoy trail and fronted the other with level eyes.

"Well?" said he.

"Why ain't that log marked?"

"I culled it."

"Ain't it sound and good? Is there a mark on it? A streak of punk or rot? Ain't it good timber? What the h.e.l.l's th' matter with it? You tried to do me out of that, you d.a.m.n skunk."

A log is culled, or thrown out, when, for any reason, it will not make good timber.

"I'll tell you, Jimmy Bourke," replied FitzPatrick, calmly, "th' stick is sound and good, or was before your murderin' crew got hold of it, but if ye'll take a squint at the b.u.t.t of it ye'll see that your gang has sawed her on a six-inch slant. They've wasted a good foot of th' log. I spoke of that afore; an' now I give ye warnin' that I cull every log, big or little, punk or sound, that ain't sawed square and true across th' b.u.t.t."

"Th' log is sound and good, an' ye'll scale it, or I'll know th' reason why!"

"I will not," replied FitzPatrick.

The following day he culled a log in another and distant skidway whose b.u.t.t showed a slant of a good six inches. The day following he culled another of the same sort on still another skidway. He examined it closely, then sought the Rough Red.

"It is useless, Jimmy Bourke," said he, "to be hauling of the same poor log from skidway to skidway. You can s.h.i.+ft her to every travoy trail in th' Crother tract, but it will do ye little good. I'll cull it wherever I find it, and never will ye get th' scale of that log."

The Rough Red raised his hand, then dropped it again; whirled away with a curse; whirled back with another, and spat out:

"By G.o.d, FitzPatrick, ye go too far! Ye've hounded me and harried me through th' woods all th' year! By G.o.d, 'tis a good stick, an' ye shall scale it!"

"Yo' and yore Old Fellows is robbers alike!" cried one of the men.

FitzPatrick turned on his heel and resumed his work. The men ceased theirs and began to talk.

That night was Christmas Eve. After supper the Rough Red went directly from the cook-camp to the men's camp. FitzPatrick, sitting lonely in the little office, heard the sounds of debauch rising steadily like mysterious storm winds in distant pines. He shrugged his shoulders, and tallied his day's scaling, and turned into his bunk wearily, for of holidays there are none in the woods, save Sunday. About midnight someone came in. FitzPatrick, roused from his sleep by aimless blunderings, struck a light, and saw the cook looking uncertainly toward him through blood-clotted lashes. The man was partly drunk, partly hurt, but more frightened.

"They's too big fer me, too big fer me!" he repeated, thickly.

FitzPatrick kicked aside the blankets and set foot on the floor.

"Le' me stay," pleaded the cook, "I won't bother you; I won't even make a noise. I'm skeered!"

"Course you can stay," replied the scaler. "Come here."

He washed the man's forehead, and bound up the cut with surgeon's plaster from the van. The man fell silent, looking at him in wonderment for such kindness.

Four hours later, dimly, through the mist of his broken sleep, FitzPatrick heard the crew depart for the woods in the early dawn. On the crest of some higher waves of consciousness were borne to him drunken shouts, maudlin blasphemies. After a time he arose and demanded breakfast.

The cook, pale and nervous, served him. The man was excited, irresolute, eager to speak. Finally he dropped down on the bench opposite FitzPatrick, and began.

"Fitz," said he, "don't go in th' woods to-day. The men is fair wild wid th' drink, and th' Rough Red is beside hi'self. Las' night I heerd them.

They are goin' to skid the b.u.t.t log again, and they swear that if you cull it again, they will kill you. They mean it. That's all why they wint to th' woods this day."

FitzPatrick swallowed his coffee in silence. In silence he arose and slipped on his mackinaw blanket coat. In silence he thrust his beechwood tablets into his pocket, and picked his pliable scaler's rule from the corner.

"Where are ye goin'?" asked the cook, anxiously.

"I'm goin' to do th' work they pay me to do," answered FitzPatrick.

He took his way down the trail, his face set straight before him, the smoke of his breath streaming behind. The first skidway he scaled with care, laying his rule flat across the face of each log, entering the figures on his many-leaved tablets of beech, marking the timbers swiftly with his blue crayon.

The woods were empty. No ring of the axe, no shout of the driver, no fall of the tree broke the silence. FitzPatrick comprehended. He knew that at the next skidway the men were gathered, waiting to see what he would do; gathered openly at last in that final hostility which had been maturing all winter. He knew, besides, that most of them were partly drunk and wholly reckless, and that he was alone. Nevertheless, after finis.h.i.+ng conscientiously skidway number one, he moved on to skidway number two.