At that moment they heard the sound of a tin pan being vigorously beaten with a stick, and immediately Dick set up a shout:
“There’s the dinner signal, or my ears and stomach fail me.”
“For once I am ready to eat a good big meal. You are not the only one with an appetite today, Dick,” said Garry, and the three raced for the cookhouse.
As they neared the cook tent, they saw the lumberjacks piling towards the place to eat. They were a sizable group of men, brawny of arm and large of frame.
Most of them gave the boys a curious glance as they flocked into the shanty. The boys thought that they were to eat in the common dining room, but found that they were to eat in a separate room that had been partitioned off from the large room. Here ate the manager, the timekeeper and cashier, and when he was present, the timber scaler.
The food that was served them was the same as that given the men. Barrows explained this by saying that it kept the men in a better humor if they knew that the bosses were getting the same fare as they.
“Lumberjacks are just like so many children,” Barrows said. “They are always on the lookout for something to quarrel about, and are almost as temperamental as grand opera stars. Just now work is scarce, so they keep better behaved; but in the winter time, when all the camps are going full blast, you have to be careful and treat them properly, else they will simply depart for some city where there is a woods agency and be sent off to another camp. That is one of the evils of lumbering, the agencies. They often try to breed trouble in the camps so that the men will quit. Then they pack them off to another logging tract and collect a commission from the camp owner for furnishing him with men. If this was winter I would think that was what was the trouble here.”
Garry looked up in surprise. He had no idea that Barrows would admit that everything was not as it should be at the camp.
He knew that the eyes of the manager were on him, nevertheless he felt that an answer was expected of him, or rather a question.
“Why, is there anything the trouble at this camp? From what I’ve seen I should say that everyone was working busily and everything was lovely.”