Tim looked at Jim and grinned broadly.
“There wouldn’t be for anybody but you, Mr. Ashe, but these here boys ’u’d work for you if it was so dark you couldn’t feel a pin stick into you.”
“Leave enough men to hold the gang in the cook-shanty. Take the rest and load. How many trucks can that engine haul down?”
“Twenty, on a pinch.”
“Pick as much maple as you can,” said Jim. “You’re boss.”
Given landings, twoscore men who know how to use cant-hooks can handle an astonishing number of logs in an hour. Twenty trucks were not filled in sixty minutes, but the train was ready before dawn—twenty trucks carrying thirty-five thousand feet of hardwood logs.
“Now the cook-shanty,” said Jim. “We need it.”
The crew rollicked to the log house which was cook-shanty at one end, bunkhouse at the other. Jim parleyed.
“Come out and we’ll let you go,” he called.
Thoroughly frightened, the foreigners emerged.