Scott Burton, Forester

by Edward G. Cheyney

Just then there was a great rumbling noise in the direction of the warehouse and a swarm of men, each pushing a two-wheel truck, burst out onto the platform and assembled in little knots around the doorways of the loaded cars. One man with a tally board in his hand stepped out of a car some distance down the platform and beckoned to them.

“You belong to five,” he shouted. They nodded assent.

“Get two trucks out of the warehouse, and get a move on you,” he growled, as he turned again to the gang of men who were loosening the tangle of freight in the doorway of the car. The tone of voice rather galled Scott, but he had chosen his job and knew that he must accept its conditions. Some of the trucks in the warehouse were pretty badly battered up, but the boys soon found two with smooth handles and easy running wheels. When they came out the work had started in earnest, and men were dodging in and out of the cars, some with loads, some with empty trucks. All seemed to be in a tremendous hurry.

As they approached the car where gang five was working the man with the board asked them if they were old hands. They said that they were not and asked what they should do.

“Take things where I tell you and keep on the jump. Hang the ticket I give you on the nail to the left of the door where you leave the stuff, and be sure it’s the right car. Those tickets are collected from time to time—Fargo [he yelled at a passing truckman, and handed him a small slip of paper]—and if you’ve left anything wrong you’ll be stuck for the freight. You’re six,” he said to Greenleaf, “and you’re seven,” to Scott.

Scott took his place in the line and soon found his truck loaded with small boxes piled mountain high.

“Fifteen for Moorehead,” the loader called.

“Right,” came the echo from the check clerk, the man with the board. He was seated beside the car door, and as Scott passed him screamed “Moorehead car,” and shoved a slip into his outstretched hand.

Scott found that the management of a two-wheeled truck was a good deal more difficult problem than he had ever imagined it to be. If he let the handles get an inch too low the burden became almost beyond his strength and twice he raised them so high that he was lifted bodily from the ground in spite of his violent efforts to stay down. It was a question of balance, and some of the men around him seemed to have mastered it perfectly. Some walked steadily and easily along with a load that would have filled a horse-cart, others tore past with a barrel or large box not only perfectly balanced but carrying them along with one foot on the axle of the truck and their bodies suspended from the truck handles by the armpits. The trucks seemed to shoot here and there, even almost at right angles into a car door, without any effort on the part of the truckman or without his so much as touching his foot to the floor. Every time Scott’s truck ran over a chip or struck the edge of a skid, his handles showed an almost uncontrollable tendency to throw him in the air, and several times he narrowly escaped spilling his load in that way. When he finally reached the Moorehead car safely a storeman met him and showed him where to dump his load. He stuck his slip on the nail with the others and ran back to the car. He found that by continually running with his empty truck he could just about make up for his slowness on the outbound trip, and maintain his turn in the gang. It was a disgrace to lose a turn.

Greenleaf had done a little trucking in the warehouses around Duluth and in half an hour was racing with the best of them, and was on joking terms with every man in the gang, except the gruff check clerk, who had been raised to that position temporarily, and was afraid to joke for fear of losing his dignity.