"All told, this timber claim is divided into ten camps or yards," said the train hand. "We were working all ten camps about six weeks ago, but Mr. Balasco thought lumber was coming in too fast at the creek, so he cut down the gangs to eight."
"How many men in a gang?" questioned Owen.
"From thirty to thirty-two."
"As many as that?" queried Dale. "How do you divide them up?"
"In the first place, there is the boss, or foreman, who, of course, tells what trees to cut and how they shall be dropped."
"Yes, we know that."
"Then there are two fellers—choppers, I reckon you call 'em—and two sawyers. Next come two barkers, two swampers, a skid maker, about ten laborers, two or three hook tenders, a rope tender, an engineer for the donkey engine, and a bucker. Last of all comes the cook and the cook's helper, and the boy who greases the skids, and also a runner, who carries messages from one telephone office to another."
"And you have eight gangs like that?" came from Owen. "That means two hundred and forty hands."
"Including the men at the creek, on the railroad, and on the river below, we have two hundred and seventy-five hands. We had over three hundred, but, as I said before, Mr. Balasco cut down the number."
The train of trucks and flat cars soon hauled up at a yard, and the two young lumbermen jumped to the ground and made their way into the neighboring forest, from which came the steady ring of the fellers' axes and the hum of the sawyers' long-bladed saws. The forest was one of fir, with trees running up to six and seven feet in diameter, and covered with rough bark half a foot thick.