“Sure an’ yer a sight fer sore eyes so ye be,” was Tom Bean’s greeting as they jumped from the sled.
“And it’s mighty glad we are to see you again Tom,” and his words were echoed by Jack as they nearly shook his arms off. “And how’s things going?” Bob asked as they began to pull their dunnage from the sled.
“Sure an’ ’twas niver better. We’re bound ter make a record cut this winter if the luck holds out,” Tom declared. “But where do you want ter slape?” he asked, picking up one of their bags.
“In the bunk house of course,” both replied in the same breath.
“It’s meself that thought so.” The foreman grinned as he led the way.
As soon as Tom had assigned their bunks to them, the boys started out on a tour of inspection of the camp as they laughingly told Tom. Dusk was falling and the men by twos and threes were coming in from the forest. They were mostly French Canadians, or Kanucks, as they were commonly called. Big men, most of them, they looked as Jack declared “as hard as nails.”
The boys knew only two or three of the crew, as they were mostly new men that winter. They were dressed in much the same garb as were the workmen—a rough mackinaw coat, heavy khaki breeches, thick woolen stockings rolled just below the knees, and moccasins. It was characteristic of them that, “when in Rome they lived as did the Romans.”
They were back of the cook house and were about to return to the front of the camp, when two men came toward them from the deep woods. The men were talking earnestly together and paid no attention to the boys as they passed them. At that moment a small hunch-backed man came hurriedly out of the back door of the cook house carrying in his hands a pan of hot ashes. Accidentally he bumped into one of the men, spilling some of the ashes on his legs. With an oath the man gave him a cuff on the side of the head which sent him sprawling in the snow, the hot ashes flying over him.
“The big brute,” Bob cried loudly enough for the man to hear, as he sprang to the hunchback’s aid and pulled him to his feet.
“What that you say?” the man who had struck the blow demanded, as he came close to Bob who was brushing the ashes from the hunchback.