"Perhaps he doesn't when he starts, but he soon looks for it—make no mistake on that point—and then he finds it is too late to break away and give up the habit."
Presently the pair heard the distant toot of a locomotive and the rattle of a lumber train as it passed over a trestle. Clearing a clump of timber, they came out into an opening, and saw at the upper end a lumber yard, with the railroad tracks running into it in fan shape. At the yard was a tiny turn-table for the engines, and half a dozen sheds for various purposes. A train had just come in, carrying twenty-odd tree trunks, each of good length, and from five to eight feet in diameter.
"There is timber for you!" cried Dale. "I'll tell you what, there are a heap of boards in one of those sticks."
"Not to say anything about shingles," put in Owen.
An empty train of cars was on the point of leaving the yard, and the young lumbermen rushed up to the locomotive and hailed the engineer.
"We want to see Mr. Balasco," said Owen. "Can we ride up to the camp with you?"
"Certainly; jump up on that flat car, and hold on tight," was the answer, and they leaped to the car mentioned. Soon the train had started, and they were jouncing along on the road, up grade and down, and around many a sharp turn, where the car wheels creaked and groaned as if in pain. As the station master had said, it was enough to knock out their teeth, and they could do but little talking en route. The locomotive was an odd-looking affair, quite different from any they had yet seen, and so were many of the trucks—used instead of flat cars for long sticks.
The ride soon came to an end, and they found themselves almost at the door of a long, low building, bearing the sign, Wilbur-Balasco Lumber Company—Offices.
"Here we are," said Owen. "Come on," and he entered the building boldly, with Dale at his heels. A clerk was present, figuring at a set of books, and a tall, heavy-set man, with a dark face and sharp black eyes, sat by a window, reading a lumbermen's journal.
As the young lumbermen came in, neither the clerk at the books nor the man who was reading looked up. Both waited just inside of the door a full minute.