Wright motioned to Andy Hall.
"You tell him."
"Mr. Norquay," Hall began quietly, "if you'd ever worked as a logger in a logging camp you'd know that asking for changes doesn't bring them about. There are a hundred and forty men in your woods on Valdez. We are, if I say so myself, as skookum a logging crew as ever was got together on the B.C. coast. And we have been asking for these things. Jim Handy is your representative on the job. We haven't anything against old Jim. He's as fair as the average woods boss. But he has exactly the same idea as most employers—keep wages down and prices up—get all the work possible out of the men. His own job as foreman depends on getting results. For the last month every time anybody has tried to talk to him about wages or camp conditions, somebody has got fired. This particular crew is tired of a take-it-or-leave-it basis of employment. That's why there's a show-down. Neither of the things we ask for is unreasonable. It is unreasonable to fire a man for wanting to talk about his wages and the conditions under which he must live."
Phil eyed Andy Hall searchingly for a second or two. Grove had twisted sidewise in his chair and glared at the logger with visible displeasure.
"Let's take up the matter of the bathtubs," Phil resumed. "Why should we supply casual labor with baths when there is a running stream through the camp and the sea is at the door?"
Rod shifted in his seat. It sounded rather callous. He thought of the unction with which he had heard worthy people declare that cleanliness is next to godliness.
Andy shrugged his shoulders.
"I could easily justify bathing facilities on moral and sanitary grounds," he said impassively. "I'll simply put it this way. Most men prefer to be clean. If it's impossible for them to be reasonably clean, they'll be uncomfortable. A man who is uncomfortable gets discontented. A discontented workman is a poor investment. There are a hundred and forty men coming out of your woods every night, stinking with sweat and dust in the summer, plastered with mud in the winter. There is one shallow wooden trough with tin washbasins and a half-inch tap. We make shift with the creek and the salt-chuck in summer. But a man who has done ten hours' hard labor in the woods can't stand naked outdoors and bathe in cold weather."
"I never before heard of bathing as an issue in a logging camp," Phil smiled. "Well, we'll concede the bathing facilities. We'll agree to build a bathroom and install pipe showers with a hot-water supply."
"Now this raise in wages," he continued judicially, after a brief pause. "I really don't believe we can go that far. We're paying the standard wages—a fairly liberal scale, it seems to me. I suggest that you go back and get the crew out to work on the understanding that we'll adjust this claim for wages between now and next payday. This strike is too much in the nature of a holdup. Wage questions can't be settled offhand. Don't you think that would be the most amiable way of ending the tie-up? The shower-bath matter will be attended to at once."