At the Wind River camp the logging roads—veins leading to main arteries which in turn led to the river and the banking grounds—were useless. By dint of effort and good luck logs could be got to the various skidways located at convenient places beside the roads, and piled there, but they could not be transported farther. The big sleighs with their nine-foot bunks, built to accommodate ten thousand feet and upward of logs at a load, lay idle. MacNutt prayed for snow, or, rather, cursed the lack of it.
When it came, with continued cold weather, it was hard, dry, and powdery. It had no bottom. It gritted like sand beneath the sleigh-shoes, and they went through it to the ground, even without a load. To obviate this and to get going in some way MacNutt put the sprinklers to work. These were huge tank affairs on runners, drawn by from four to six horses. At the top of the tank was a stout, wooden triangle with a block. A wire rope ran through the block. At one end of the rope was a barrel; at the other end was a horse. The horse walked away; the barrel, filled at a water-hole cut in the ice, ran up an inclined, rungless ladder to the top of the tank, where it dumped its contents automatically. The water found its exit from the tank through auger holes bored in the rear, controlled by a closely fitting trap door. Thus the roads were flooded, they froze, and the hauling began.
So far MacNutt had seen nothing of Rough Shan McCane. Occasionally on a Sunday, when work was suspended, one of the latter’s men would drift over, but the gang kept very much to themselves. There was no indication of undue sociability. Still MacNutt, on the principle that storms always brew in fine weather, kept a very open pair of eyes and ears. Some of the men, he knew, could not resist liquor; given access to it they would become drunk as certainly as effect ever follows cause. Over these weak vessels, then, he kept watch.
It was shortly after the road went into operation that he found the first sign of trouble. A swamper, named Flett, was trimming the top of a fallen tree. MacNutt observed the listless rise and fall of the man’s axe in high displeasure. It fell almost of its own weight; there was no power to the blow, and instead of being recovered and swung up again with vim for another stroke the blade lay for an appreciable instant in the gash.
“You, Flett,” rasped MacNutt, “I’ll have no sojerin’ on this job! Understand?”
The man turned, startled, exhibiting a pair of reddened, bloodshot eyes.
“Who’s sojerin’?” he growled.
“Wake up an’ work, ye damned lazy dog!” roared MacNutt. “Take a man’s pay, eat a man’s grub, an’ then loaf on the job, would ye, ye slab-mouthed, slouchin’ son of sin?” For the first time he noticed the man’s eyes, and swore a great oath. “Ye’ve been drinkin’!”
“I ain’t,” Flett denied sullenly.
“Ye lie!” barked MacNutt. “Where did ye get it?”