“I tell ye it’s risky.” And the other replied impatiently:
“Risky nothing. There ain’t a man round here that’d dare serve that injunction on me.”
“That’s Big Ben,” thought Bob, as he strained his ears, but now the two men were talking only in whispers and he was unable to catch any more of the conversation. “Guess Big Ben intends to cut on that tract, injunction or no injunction,” he thought as he drifted off to sleep again.
At four o’clock Al called the boys and they were soon on their journey again.
Daylight found them several miles nearer the lake and just as the town clock was striking twelve they pulled into Greenville, a small town at the foot of the lake. The camp was twenty miles up the lake, a little to the north of Lilly Bay.
Bob had told Jack what he had heard in the night and they both agreed that their father should know of it. So they went at once into the general store and soon had him on the long distance wire.
“Tell Tom to keep his eyes open and let me know if they start to cut,” Mr. Golden said, after Bob had told him what he had heard.
Tom Bean was the foreman of the camp and a great favorite with the boys, as indeed he was with nearly all who knew him. An Irishman, quick of temper but generous to a fault, and with a heart, as Jack often said, “as big as an ox,” he possessed the rare knack of getting the maximum amount of work from his men with the minimum amount of trouble. As one man put it, “one worked for Tom because he liked him!”
Dinner over, they started up the lake on the ice. A good road had been broken up the lake and they made excellent time, reaching their destination fully an hour before dark.
The camp comprised five buildings, all built of unpeeled logs. In the center of the clearing was the bunk house, a long low structure where the men slept. It was heated by two immense wood-burning stoves, while along both sides were the beds or bunks built up in tiers three high. Back of the bunk house was the cook and mess house, another structure of about the same size but divided into two sections. Two rough tables ran the entire length of the larger section, while the smaller was a kitchen or cook house as it was called. A little to the right of the bunk house was a small building which served as the office and sleeping quarters for the boss or any other visitors. Six men could be accommodated here very comfortably. The fourth building, just behind the office, was the tool house, and back of that a large shed for the horses. About sixty men were at work at the camp.