Quite frequently the saw would be stopped for a moment while the boss sawyer oiled up different parts of the machinery. He did not seem to like Dick’s watching him, but he was evidently a little wiser than the driver, and attempted an explanation.
“This is the last saw we have in the camp,” he told Dick. “The ones that we ordered haven’t shown up yet, and if anything goes wrong with this one, we are hurt and hurt bad.”
Dick pretended a great deal of ignorance about the saw, but he could see that the sawyer regarded him with some suspicion.
Dick kept in the sawmill, but stayed as much as possible in the background. After nearly an hour of watching, a great log was rolled onto the carriage, and glancing at his watch, the boss sawyer called an assistant and gave him charge of the saw. Then he hastened from the mill and started in the direction of the camp, evidently to hold a conference with Barrows. Dick was turning to saunter out when he heard a terrific tearing sound as of steel being ground between heavy rollers, then a cry of pain from the sawyer. Dick turned and rushed to the scene. The saw was still grinding into the obstruction that was causing the noise, and several pieces of flying steel were in the air. The sawyer had his hands clasped to his face, and the blood was streaming from between his fingers.
Dick saw that there was no one with presence of mind enough to throw the lever that shut off the saw, and he ran and threw off the lever. Then he returned to the injured man. The flying teeth of the saw had cut his face in several places, but fortunately his eyes were uninjured. That he had escaped being blinded was almost a miracle.
The thought that flashed through Dick’s mind that here was an instance of what Howells had told them, of the spiking a tree in the upper part where it would hit the saw. Dick asked the old man who had told them how to fumigate their shack the day before if he could roll back the saw without starting up the engine and causing more teeth to be broken and start flying about the place.
In a few minutes the old timer had worked the saw back so that Dick could examine it. It required only a moment to see that the saw was irreparably ruined. Most of the teeth had been bent or broken off, and a further examination showed that several parts of the saw carriage and control had been broken or strained by the unwonted burden that had been put on them.
At this moment the boss sawyer and Barrows, the manager, had come rushing up to the mill to inquire what was the trouble. Garry was with them, and Dick gave him a significant look, unobserved by the others.
“What’s all the trouble?” inquired Barrows needlessly, for he could see with half an eye the damage that had been wrought.
“Seems as if your saw was a total wreck,” answered Dick. “Must have struck a ton of metal in the heart of that tree to do all that damage.”