“Sure an’ it’s of no use to watch iny longer,” Tom said, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe. “Unless it’s a rale ghost he knows as how all the byes are in bed by this time.”
Neither of the boys slept much that night. It was not worry that kept them awake, however. It was a far more tangible cause. In short it was snoring on the part of many of the crew. The snoring varied in tone, as Jack declared the next morning, “all the way from low A to high C.” But as they had had the same experience a number of times before, they knew that they would soon get used to it.
Jean Larue had not been at supper the night of the fight, but he was on hand for breakfast the next morning, apparently none the worse for his beating. He had, however, a decidedly downcast look, as though he realized, as no doubt he did, that the day of his authority over his mates was past.
“If looks could kill, you’d be a dead man,” Jack whispered to Bob as they took their seats at the long table. “That Larue is certainly looking daggers at you.”
“Just so he doesn’t do anything except look I should worry,” Bob grinned, as he helped himself to a couple of shredded wheat biscuits.
The camp was situated about a hundred rods from the lake and, at the time, they were felling the spruce some two hundred rods north of the camp. It was a sight which they never tired of, watching to see the mighty monarchs of the woods yield little by little at first to the axe and saw, and then, with a terrific crash, fall to earth. Then would come the trimming off of the branches and sawing into the proper length, after which the logs would be rolled onto the low but exceedingly strong sleds and drawn by a span of horses to the lake. There they were piled on the shore as closely as possible to the water and were ready to be towed across the lake by steamers to the Kennebec River as soon as the ice broke up in the spring. Formerly axes were used exclusively in felling the trees, but lately large cross cut saws have to a large extent superseded them. At the Golden camp the men were allowed to use either as they desired.
As Jean Larue was passing the office that morning on his way to the cuttings, Tom Bean called him in, and after he had closed the door, said not unkindly:
“Jean, that boy licked you last night in a fair fight as ye well know, and mind now, I don’t want to be after hearing of him gettin’ hurted by accident, so to speak, cause if I do it’s meself thot’ll make ye prove yer innocence. Mind now.”
Jean stood in sulky silence while the boss was speaking, and as he finished turned on his heel and left the room.
“Sure an’ it’s him thot’s the ugly brute,” the foreman muttered, shaking his head.