“That’s the way with big jams. I remember, thirty years ago on Frenchman’s Creek—” He drew McKenna and MacNutt out of earshot, relating his story. Suddenly he stopped. “Look here, Dinny, if this jam don’t break mighty soon young Kent goes out of business.”
“Well, I wish t’ God I knew how to break her,” said McKenna. “The boys can’t work harder than they’re doing. We’ve put in shots ’t’d rip a mountain loose, and she just lays back her ears and sits tighter.”
Meanwhile Jack and Joe walked upstream along the bank. Here and there on the flanks of the wooden monster crews of men picked away with peavies. The clean smell of the millions of feet of freshly cut, wet timber struck the nostrils. The water tore and snarled at the wedged logs, and little streams shot through the mass, hissing and gurgling; the voice of the checked river was deep and angry.
“To-morrow we’re going to fill it up with powder and see what that does,” said Joe. “With the rising water it may start things. If it does not—” He shrugged his shoulders. If the jam did not “pull” soon he was broken, and he knew it.
Jack slid her arm in his. “Dad says the big jams go when you least expect it. This will. You have time yet, Joey-boy.”
He patted her hand. “It’s good of you, Jack. Anyway, I’ve done my best, and if I’m downed this time I can make a fresh start. I know something about the business now.”
Jack looked at him and nodded. He was quite unlike the neatly tailored Joe Kent of a year before. He wore a battered felt hat, a gray shirt, trousers cut off below the knees, and heavy woollen stockings. On his feet were the “cork boots” of the riverman. Already he had mastered the rudiments of “birling,” and could run across floating logs, if not gracefully at least with slight chance of a ducking. He was bronzed and hard, and his hands were rough and calloused. But the difference went deeper than outward appearance. He was stronger, graver, more self-reliant, and the girl recognized and approved of the change.
The day faded into dusk. Big fires were lighted at the camp. Crooks and his daughter remained for supper; afterward they were to drive back to the little town, coming back the next morning to see the big shots let off.
Crooks lit a cigar and joined the foremen, to discuss the jam and the probability of breaking it, and yarn of his own experiences with mighty rivermen whose names were now but traditions. The men lay about the fires, smoking and talking. They were tired, and the popular vocalists, shy because there was a girl in the camp, hung back and muttered profane refusals when asked to sing. Jack was disappointed. “I haven’t heard a shanty song sung by a crew in ages. I wish they would wake up. Am I the wet-blanket?”
“I’ll go over and tell them to sing anything you like,” Joe offered promptly.