“Here’s a good health to you, family man,
From the depths of our hearts and the woods;
Boughs for our bunks and salt hoss in junks
Ain’t hefty in way o’ world’s goods.
Keep your neck near her arms and your cheek near her kiss,
And don’t ever come here to the troubles o’ This!
We’ve tasted of This and we know what it lacks—
We lonesome old baches—
Of peavies and patches,
Bills, Tommies, and Jacks of the Axe.”
—The Family Man.
Barrett was at the table, his back towards the door. He was filling a pannikin with whiskey from a silver-mounted flask. The cook, who had been silently admiring his smart suit of corduroy, was now more intently and longingly regarding the amber trickle from the mouth of the flask. But John Barrett was not a man to ask menials to share his bowl with him. His shaven cheeks looked too hard even to permit the growth of beard.
The cook, whirling at the sound of Lane’s moccasins on the chip dirt, was officious according to his promulgated code of politeness.
“Here’s the warden from Jerusalem, Mr. Barrett. I done the honors of camp the best I could, seein’ that you and Mr. Withee wa’n’t here.” In mentioning honors, the cook had one lingering hope that the stumpage-king would share his flask with a State employé, and that he himself might participate as one present and one willing.
But the timber baron did not turn his head. He stirred sugar in his whiskey and growled.
“Do fire wardens up this way earn their pay, sleeping, like cats, in the daytime?”
Lane had stepped just inside the door, his moccasins noiseless on the shaved poles.
“How near is that fire to the black growth, and how are they fighting it?” demanded Barrett.