“He’s good stuff, that lad,” said Haggarty. “He minds me of some one—a good man, too.”
“Would it be Alec Macnamara, now?” asked Regan. Macnamara, a famous “white-water birler,” had met his fate in the breaking of a log-jam some years before.
“That’s who it is, God rest his soul,” said Haggarty. “He’s younger, but he’s the dead spit of Alec in the eyes an’ mouth. It’s my belief he laughs when he fights, like him, an’ he’d die game as Alec died.”
Whether Haggarty’s belief was right or wrong did not appear. Nothing arose to put the young boss’s courage to a test. All went merry as a marriage bell, and the quantity of logs pouring down to the banking grounds attested the quality of the work done. Then came trouble out of a comparatively clear sky.
One day Joe was bossing the job, MacNutt being in camp. His bossing, truth to tell, lay more in the moral effect of his presence than in issuing orders or giving instruction. Having the good sense to recognize his present limitations, he let the men alone. The air was soft with a promise of snow, and he lit his pipe and sauntered up the logging road.
Before a skidway stood four men in hot argument. Two of these were Haggarty and Jackson. One was unknown to Kent. The fourth he recognized as Rough Shan McCane.
“Here’s Mr. Kent now,” said Haggarty, catching sight of him.
Rough Shan favored Joe with a contemptuous stare. “Where’s MacNutt?” he demanded. “I told him this log stealin’ had got to stop.”
“MacNutt is in camp,” said Joe. “You can talk to me if you like. What’s the matter?”
Rough Shan cursed the absent foreman. “Log stealin’s the matter,” he announced. “A load of our logs has gone slick an’ clean.”