"Guess you wouldn't—not up to our camp," laughed Joel Winthrop. "Had a cook last year who burnt the beans an' they tuk him down to the river, chopped a hole in the ice, an' soused him under three times. He never burnt a bean after thet, so long as he stayed."
"We'd like to go as choppers or swampers," said Dale. A chopper is one who fells trees, while a swamper is one who cuts down brushwood and makes a road from the forest to where the logs are piled for shipment in the spring.
"An' what wages are you expectin'?"
"Regular wages," said Dale boldly. "We expect to do regular men's work."
"Got a recommend?"
"Several of them," and Dale handed over the letters he had received from Larson, Odell, and his other employers. Owen also exhibited several recommendations he possessed.
"I see ye don't drink," said Joel Winthrop. "Glad to hear o' that. Drink is the curse of a lumber camp, you know that well as I do. The question is, can ye both stand the work fer a whole season?"
"If we can't you'll not have to keep us," answered Owen.
"Ours is a mighty cold camp, I can tell ye that."
"We are used to roughing it," said Dale. "I was brought up that way from a baby."