A floor of roughly-flattened timbers having been laid and a door cut, it only remains to construct the "camboose," or fireplace, and the bunks, and the shanty is complete; provided, of course, every cranny in the walls has been chinked with moss and mud, and a bank of earth thrown up all around the outside to make sure that no draughts can sneak in when the mercury is far below zero.
The "camboose" is quite an important affair, and occupies the place of honour in the centre of the room between the four massive scoop-bearers. Its construction is as rude and simple as that of the rest of the shanty. A bank of sand about two feet deep and six feet square makes the hearth. Over it hang two wooden cranes that hold the capacious kettles, which are always full of the pea-soup or fat salt pork that constitute the chief items in the shantymen's bill of fare.
A mighty fire roars and crackles unceasingly upon the hearth, its smoke escaping through a square hole in the roof—a hole so big that one may lie in the bunks and study the stars. This rude chimney secures the best of ventilation to the shantymen. The bunks, which are simply sloping platforms about seven feet in length, running around three sides of the room, offer the sweet allurement of the soft side of a plank to the tired toilers at the close of the day.
Such is a shanty of the good old-fashioned sort. In later days such refinements of civilization as windows, stoves, and tables have been added by progressive lumbermen, but there are still scores of shanties to which the above description applies.
The shantymen are now ready to begin operations against the great trees that have been standing all about, silent, unconscious spectators of the undertaking. The forty men are divided according to the nature of their work. The clerk, cook, and chore-boy are the "home-guard." The others, according to their various abilities, are choppers, road-cutters, teamsters, sawyers, and chainers.
The only duty requiring explanation is that of chore-boy. It is usually performed by the youngest member of the gang, although sometimes it falls to the lot of a man well up in years. The chore-boy is the cook's assistant and general utility worker of the shanty. He has to chop the firewood, draw the water, wash the dishes, and perform a multitude of such odd jobs, in return for which he is apt to get little thanks and much abuse.
The choppers have the most important and interesting part of the work. They always work in pairs, and go out against the trees armed with a keen axe apiece and a crosscut-saw between them. Having selected their victim—say a splendid pine, towering more than a hundred feet in the air—they take up their position at each side. Soon the strokes of the axes ring out in quick succession. For some time the yellow chips fly fast, and presently a shiver runs through the tree's mighty frame. One of the choppers cries warningly to the other, who hastens to get out of the way. A few more strokes are given with nice skill. Then comes a rending crack, whose meaning cannot be mistaken; and the stately tree, after quivering a moment as though uncertain which way to fall, crashes headlong to the ground, making a wide swath through the smaller trees standing near.
A good chopper can lay his tree almost exactly where he likes, and yet somehow accidents are of frequent occurrence. Every winter additions are made to the long list of men whom the trees have succeeded in involving in their own ruin. A gust of wind, the proximity of another tree, or some such influence may cause the falling trunk to swerve, and fall with fatal force upon the unwary chopper.
The tree felled, the next proceeding is to strip it of its branches, and saw it up into as many logs as can be got from it. Two, three, four, or even as many as five logs may be obtained from a single tree—the length of each being thirteen and a half feet or sixteen and a half according to the quality. The odd half-foot is allowed for the "brooming" of the ends as the logs make their rough journey down the streams to the mills.
