Hurley's eyes grew hard "They ain't a-goin' to be no loss this year!" he replied savagely. "The Syndicate had more logs in Dogfish than me last year, an' a bigger crew, an' more white-water birlers amongst 'em, so Long Leaf Olson, the foreman of the Syndicate camp, ordered me to take the rear drive. I tuk it—an' be the time I'd got through cardin' the ledges, an' sackin' the bars, an' shovin' off jill-pokes, the main drive was sorted an' the logs in the logans, an' I was handed me boom scale at the mills. But, this year it's different. I'll have agin as many logs as them, an' two crews, an' when we git to the mills I'll have men of my own at the sortin' gap."
"If they was dams on Dogfish the rear drive wouldn't be so bad," opined Saginaw.
"If they was dams on Dogfish, we'd be worse off than ever," growled Hurley, "because the Syndicate would own the dams, an' we'd stand a fat show of sluicin' anything through 'em. No sir! We'll go out with the ice, an' me on the head of the drive, an' if Long Leaf fouls us, I won't be carin'. I see through the game he done me last year—keepin' me on the rear, an' it worked like this: Dogfish runs out with a rush an' then falls as quick as it run out. All the logs that ain't into the big river on the run-out is left fer the rear drive, an', believe me, we had a plenty dry-rollin' to do. For why? Because that thievin' Long Leaf nipped every jam before it started, an' left me with a month's work gittin' the stranded logs out of Dogfish. This year, it'll be me that's boss of the main drive, an' if a jam starts I'll let 'em pile up—an' I'll see that one starts, too—that'll back the water up behind 'em an' give the rear plenty of river to float down on, then when everything's caught up, I'll put some canned thunder in under her an' away we go to the next jam."
"Ye' talk like ye could jam 'em whenever ye wanted to," said Lon Camden.
Hurley regarded him gravely: "It's twenty-three miles from here to the big river. There'll be a jam ten miles below here, an' another, one mile above the mouth." The three stared at him in surprise. "You see," the boss continued, with evident satisfaction in their astonishment, "when I got the boom scale last summer, it turned me sick. I made out me report an' sent it to Alasky, an' then I went home to Pine Hook an' hoed me garden a day, an' put in the next one choppin' firewood. It was after supper that day an' the kiddies to bed, the wife comes out to where I was an' sets down on the choppin' log beside me. I smokes me pipe, an' don't pay her no mind, 'cause I was sore in the heart of me. After while she lays a hand on the sleeve of me shirt. 'Jake,' she says, 'all the winter an' spring the childer gabbles about the fun they'll be havin' when daddy comes home.'" The man paused and grinned, slyly. "It's like a woman to begin at the backwards of a thing an' work up to the front. I bet when one gits to heaven it'll be the health of Adam an' Eve they'll be inquirin' about furst, instead of John L. Sullivan, roight out. Anyway, that's what she says, an' I replies in the negative by sayin' nothin'. 'An' here you be'n home two days,' she goes on, an' stops, like they's enough be'n said.
"'An' I've hoed the garden, an' cut the firewood,' says I. 'What would you be havin' me do?'" Again Hurley grinned: "I dropped a match in the bung of an empty gasoline bar'l onct, that had laid in the sun behind the store, thinkin' to see if it would make a good rain bar'l. It didn't. Part of it made fair kindlin's, though, an' I was out an' around in a week. Giant powder, gasoline, an' wimmin is all safe enough if ye don't handle 'em careless—but, if ye do, ye git quick action—an' plenty of it.
"'Do!' she says, in the same tone of voice used by the gasoline bar'l that day. 'Well, if you can't think of nothin' else to do, give the poor darlints a beatin' just to let 'em know you're around!' Then she gits up an' starts fer the house." Hurley held a match to his pipe and puffed deeply for a few moments, "I never believed much in signs," he grinned, "but they's some signs I heed—so I laughed. The laugh come from the throat only, an' not from the heart, an' at the sound of it she turned, an' then she come back slow an' set down agin on the choppin' log. 'Tell me what's wrong, Jake,' she says. 'Two kin carry a load better than one.' So I up an' told her, an' she set for quite a while an' looked out over the slashin'.
"'Is that all?' she says, after a bit. 'Is that what ye've be'n hoein' an' choppin' over fer two days, an' gittin' madder with every whack—an' not payin' no heed to the important things that's been pilin' up to be done.' 'What's to be done?' says I, 'if it ain't the wood an' the garden?' 'It's the first time ye ever come back from the woods an' didn't see fer yerself what's to be done,' she says. 'With two wheels busted off Jimmy's tote wagon, an' Paddy's logs in the crick an' on his landin's waitin' fer daddy to show him how to build his dam an' sluice, an' Jimmy with the timber all out fer his Injun stockade, an' waitin' fer daddy to tell him does the logs go in crossways or up an' down!'
"So the next week I put in loggin' on the crick behind the pig pen. We put in a dam an' sluice, an' run a season's cut through, an' sorted 'em an' boomed 'em, an even rigged a goat-power saw-mill that would jerk the logs out of the crick but wouldn't cut 'em. An' by gosh, when the week was gone I had some good schemes in me own head, an' takin' five men with me, I went off up Dogfish an' studied the stream, an' this spring they'll be jams where I want jams! An' I'm the bucko that'll be on the head end, an' I'll bust 'em when I want to!"
"You ain't obstructed navigation, have ye?" asked Lon, with concern. "Cause if you have the Syndicate'll take it up in a minute, an' they'll law ye out of ten seasons' profit. Buckin' the Syndicate has cost many a little feller his pile. If they can't steal ye poor, they'll law ye poor—an' it's the same thing fer the small operator."