They were very sure.
“Well,” said Crooks judicially, “I don’t know any young fellow I’d rather give Jack to, Joe. Shake hands, you robber. But, mind you, you’ve got to put your business on its feet before you marry her.”
“I’ll do it,” Joe promised.
“Of course he will,” Jack asserted with perfect faith.
Bill Crooks regarded them wistfully. In their youth and hope he saw his own. He thought of a far day when he and a girl had faced the world together, determined to wring from it success. The success had come, but the woman of his heart no longer shared it with him. Suddenly he felt old and lonely. He roused himself with a sigh and a shake of his big shoulders. No one, not even his daughter, suspected old Bill Crooks of sentiment. His thoughts were his own.
XV
Joe Kent tore himself away from his new happiness, visited Tobin’s and Deever’s camps, spent a few days at each, and wound up at Wind River. The banking grounds were full—great piles of timber stretching along the water’s edge waiting the going of the ice. The winter roads were failing fast and the last logs were coming out the woods in half loads. Most of the hauling was done by night, for then the roads hardened with frost. By day the air was mild and the depth of snow sank sensibly. Then came the first rain of the season, destroying the roads utterly.
All the men, save the driving crew, were paid off. Since a lumber camp is a self-contained community including a store or “van” at which the hands purchase most of their simple necessaries, paying off involves an adjustment of accounts, A lumber jack seldom keeps a record of his purchases, and is thus dependent upon the honesty of his employer’s bookkeeping. The custom is to run rapidly over the account of each man in his presence. If he remembers the purchases and is satisfied, as he is in the majority of cases, well and good. If he does not remember or is not satisfied after reasonable explanation he is tendered a check and told to see a lawyer. But there have been logging firms who have robbed their men shamelessly.
“Jack,” one employer is alleged to have said, “you remember that pair of socks you got in December?”
Jack, after an effort, remembered.