Over in the main draw other felling crews were cutting logs for the chute and they were popping down so steadily that the old bear trap was playing a regular tune.
Scott used to stand on the railroad track or the hotel porch and look up at the slope with pride. For he had marked that timber for cutting when he was still supervisor and he had done it well. Instead of the barren, blackened hillside which the logger usually leaves behind him there was enough small timber left standing to make it look almost like a virgin forest. Some one could log there again before so very many years.
It looked as though the feud were practically dead. Sewall could report no new developments. Hopwood had not shown up with any news for a long time, not since Scott had visited him in his cabin, but he had sent him word occasionally by Sewall. Scott thought that he was avoiding the camps.
One day Scott’s peace was rudely shattered. He had stayed at home that morning to finish up some correspondence. Just before noon MacAndrews came bursting into the room. He was so mad that there were tears in his eyes and he was almost inarticulate. He strode up and down the full length of the room twice, waving his arms wildly, before he could get a word out of himself.
Scott was pale with apprehension. “What under the sun is the matter, Mac?” he asked anxiously.
“Drunk,” Mac shouted savagely. “The whole blame crew’s drunk.”
“Drunk?” Scott echoed in his astonishment, while Mac continued to walk the floor.
“Dead drunk,” Mac repeated in disgust. “In the middle of the morning, and not a lick of work to be got out of any of them.”
“Where did they get it?” Scott asked, for both he and Mac had exerted every possible effort to keep whisky out of the camp.
“Yes,” Mac roared, “that is the question. Where did they get it? I’ve asked them all and beaten up half of them and not a word have I got out of any one. Show me the man who brought it in, that’s all I ask.”