“Jest an idee fur you to chaw on, Joe,” said Avery. “But if you’ll quit huggin’ thet hoe-handle and come inside we’ll have suthin’ more solid-like.”
CHAPTER XXIII—A CONFESSION
Ridges of honeycombed snow lay in the cold, sunless hollows of the woods, slowly melting as each succeeding noon brought milder weather. With the April rains the myriad inch-deep streams sprang to clamoring torrents that swelled and burst over the level of their gutted courses. They lapped the soft loam from the tree-roots until the clear snow-water was stained with streaks of brown, in which floated mildewing patches of clotted leaves.
Moss-banked logs and boulders steamed as the sun found them through the dripping trees, and a faint, almost imperceptible mist softened the nakedness of beech and maple, while on the skyline the hills wavered in a blue opaqueness that veiled their rich dark-green pinnacles of spruce and pine.
On the skidways dotted along the North Branch, that swept eddying into Lost Lake, the lumbermen toiled from the first glimmer of dawn until dusk, running the logs to the river until its broad surface was one moving floor of crowding timbers. Day after day the logs swept down to the lake and rolled lazily in the slow wash of the waves, and day after day the lumbermen dogged them with grim persistence until the timbers, herded at the lower end of the lake, lay secure against adverse winds behind the booms.
From Lost Farm Camp, Avery could see the smoke of the wangan below, as he stood on the cabin porch watching the distant figures on the lake shore; as they moved here and there, their actions, at that distance, suggesting the unintelligible scurrying of ants.
“They ain’t wastin’ no time!” he exclaimed. “Cook’s on the job a’ready, and Swickey ain’t here yit. Howcome they’s goin’ to be plenty of chances to take pictures afore they run thet drive through. Water’s turrible low fur this time of year.” He shook his head. “Wal, when the railrud gits here, thet’ll settle the drive. Reckon this is the last time the boys will run ’em through. Lumberin’ ain’t what it used to be.” He shook his head again as the memory of his early days with the Great Western came to him.
Smoke, who squatted beside him, stood up and sniffed, nose high in air.
“What you smellin’, Smoke? Injuns?”
The dog wagged his tail a very little, but kept his eyes fixed on the edge of the clearing where the Tramworth road entered.