"He had no business to stop me, Owen."
"You're right there. What brought you up? I heard something of a shut-down at Larson's."
"Yes, we've shut down and I came up here to look for work."
"You came at a bad time—with some of the men on a strike."
"That's true." Dale's brow grew thoughtful. "Perhaps I had better go back, after all. I don't want to do some poor chap out of his job."
"They don't deserve work—half of them!" declared Owen. "The crowd that is out is the drinking gang. They want more money to waste on liquor. All the steady fellows are working the same as usual."
"Then I'll see Mr. Odell and chance it. Where can I find him?"
"He was in the mill a short while ago."
Owen had a mission up the lake and soon left Dale, and the latter dismounted and entered the mill, just as the machinery started up once more.
Mr. Odell was a burly old lumberman of sixty. He had spent all his life in the woods and few knew woodcraft or mill work better than he. He gazed at Dale sharply when he listened to what the young lumberman had to say.