The manager asked them what they intended to do for living quarters. “I am sorry that I can’t offer you quarters in the bunkhouse here, but they are just built to accommodate the officers of the camp; that is myself, the sealer, the timekeeper and the bookkeeper. Of course you would not want to live in the bunkhouse with the men, for they are a rough lot. All I can suggest is that we makeshift for you some way and I will send to town and dig up a tent for you.”
“If you will just loan us an axe apiece, and tell us which spot we can cut a little timber from, we can throw ourselves up a cabin in a short time, so don’t bother about a tent. If necessary we can sleep in the open till we get our shack fixed up,” answered Garry.
“Why, I can do better than that. I can let you have a couple or three men to help you and do the work if you can direct them as to the kind of cabin you want.”
“I don’t want to take any of the men away from their work,” Garry told him, “but if we could have two or three for a few minutes to help us throw up the cabin after we cut the stuff it would help greatly.”
“I will go and mark out some of the trees that you can cut. There is a small growth here that isn’t exceptionally good lumber, it's rather scrubby, but will do very well for a cabin. I’ll have to go myself, for I left the cruiser go a few days to do some business he had waiting him, and I have been scaling myself. In fact I do that often. Whenever he is cruising to mark trees for cutting I do the measuring and that saves a lot of time, also it saves the pay of an extra man. You ought to have a good bit done by noontime and then after dinner I will detail a couple of men to help you,” and the manager led the way to the cookhouse, where there were several extra axes.
When they arrived at the cookhouse, they looked about with quite a bit of curiosity. Two great ranges stood at one end of the kitchen, and on one of the ranges were two enormous kettles. The boys could smell appetizing pea soup and judged that one of the kettles contained this.
The cook was an enormous man with a pair of fierce black moustaches, and the one man on the whole range who was regarded as being just a little bit better than the boss or even the owner of the timber tract. Lumberjacks always took care never to pick a quarrel with him, and this went the same for the manager and the camp officers.
This is the same in every logging camp, for a cook can pay up any grievances by cooking the food in an inferior fashion. Camp owners and managers always pay the greatest attention to the sort of man they pick for this position, for while in a lumber camp, there is never a widely varied menu, it must be well cooked and plentiful.
Nothing will drive the men away from a camp quicker than poor cooking.
The manager introduced the boys to the cook, who shook hands with them, offering a hairy hand which the chums privately thought resembled a ham. For all his fierce looks he proved to be a genial chap, and the three boys wondered whether he was one of the ring of trouble makers or not. They reserved any decision in their own minds to await future developments, but they had decided that everyone was under suspicion until he proved that he was clear of any blame in the mysterious occurrences that retarded progress at the lumber camp.