“Dry up, ye divils! How can he hear himself?”
But Cooley made a flying leap from the table, and nothing could induce him to mount it again. Joe got details at second hand of the fearful licking administered to McCane by Cooley, a combat which had been witnessed by only half a dozen. In the end the big riverman had kicked his enemy into unconsciousness with his spiked boots, according to ancient custom. He desisted only when it was apparent that the fallen man’s life hung in the balance. As he and his fellows looked at it, this was merely justice, and very light justice at that.
More than half the crew started for town to drink the health of the young boss and his bride-to-be. It was a beautiful excuse. Jack and Joe walked up the river’s bank to take a last look at the logs. They had little to say, for the reaction had set in. They stood silently in the moonlight, gazing at the fields of brown timber covering the surface of the river, safe down at last at the cost of a winter’s toil, a spring’s heartbreaking endeavour, and a toll of human life.
Joe put his arm around the girl’s waist and drew her to him. Strong and full-throated, mellowed by distance, came the last refrain of old Bill Crooks’s favourite river-song as the crew shouted it on their way to town.
“When the drive comes dow-un, when the jam comes down,
What makes yeez lads so wishful-eyed as we draw near to town?
Other eyes is soft an’ bright, like the stars of a June night—
Wives an’ sweethearts—prayin’, waitin’—as we drive the river down.
(Oh, ye divils!)
God bless the eyes that shine for us when we boil into town.”
“God bless your eyes, Jack, dear!” said Joe softly, and kissed her. The future lay clear and fair before them, a-flush with the rosy lights of youth and hope.
XXII
By the terms of Joe’s contract with Wismer & Holden, these astute millmen had agreed to pay cash for the logs on delivery. Joe held them to this, refusing acceptances at thirty and sixty days. He was thus at once in a position to reduce his liabilities and sustain his credit, which had been seriously strained, with his own bank.
His mill was running at capacity. All day the air was vibrant with the hum of it, the thunder of the log carriages, the deep raucous drone of the big saws, the higher pitched voices of the smaller. All day a stream of shaggy, brown logs, prodded by pike poles, was swept upward in dripping procession on an endless chain, tossed on iron beds, flung against the saws, rolled on carriers as rough boards to other saws—to edgers, trimmers and planers—and disgorged from the farther end of the mill in a dozen grades of product to be carried to the piling yards and drying sheds. Day and night the smoke from burning sawdust in the huge, stack-like consumer poured upward to the sky.
Thus the producing end of his business was satisfactory. Not less so were the sales. In addition to a particularly brisk local demand, Wright’s activities had resulted in some excellent contracts not only for immediate, but for future delivery. There would be no lack of a market for every foot the mill could turn out. Also there was no car shortage. The tacit agreement which Locke had been able to obtain as part of the price of withdrawing his action was being held to rigidly. The firm could sell all its mills could cut and deliver all it could sell. Naturally Wright and Joe were pleased and congratulated each other upon the rosy outlook.