"Eleven feet!" said the rubbing thumb and forefinger.
If any spoke it was about the business of the Mill.
"Fine cedar this," said Mac to Jack, "fine cedar—special order—for——" a lost word.
But for the most part no one spoke but the saws. Men whistled with pursed lips and whistled dumbly: they sang too, but the songs were swallowed in the song of the Saws. They began at six and ran till noon unless a breakdown happened and some belt gave way. But none had given this day and it was ten o'clock. The men were warm and willing with work, their muscles worked warm and easy. It was grand to handle the lever and to beat in the iron dogs: to use the maul upon the wedges as the Saws squealed. They worked easy in their minds. They looked up and smiled unenvious of idle Pitt River Pete. They knew work was good, their breath felt clean: their hearts beat to the rhythm of the Mill.
As mills go it was a small one. It could not compete with the giants of the Inlet and the Sound who served Australia, which grows no good working wood, or South America. It sent no lumber to Brisbane, no boards to Callao or Valparaiso. It served the town of New Westminster and the neighbouring ranches: the little growth of townships on the River up to Hope and Yale. Sometimes it sent a cargo to Victoria or 'Squimault. A schooner even now lay alongside the wharf, piled high with new sawed stuff, that the saws had eaten as logs and spewed as lumber.
As logs! Aye, in the pool below, in the Boom, which is a chained log corral for swimming logs, a hundred great logs swam. Paul (from nowhere, but a tall thin man) was the keeper and their herder. He chose them for the slaughter, and went out upon them as they wallowed, and with a long pike stood upon the one to be sacrificed and drove it to the spot whence it should climb to the altar: a long slope with an endless cable working above and below it. He made it fast with heavy dogs, with chains may be, and then spoke to one above who clapped the Friction on the Bull-Wheel and hove the log out of the water, as if it were a whale for flensing. It went up into the Mill and was rolled upon the skids, and waited. It trembled and the Mill trembled.
"Now, now, that log, boys. Hook in, drive her, roll her, heave and she's on! Drive in the dogs and she goes!"
Oh, but it was a good sight and the roar was filling. Pete's eyes sparkled: he loved it: loved the sound and the song and itched to be again on the log with the maul. Those who speak of sport—why, let them fell a giant, drive it, boom it, drag it and cut it up! To brittle a monarch of the forest and disembowel it of its boards: its scantlings: its squared lumber: posts, fences, shingles, laths, pickets, Oho! Pete knew how great it was.
"Oh, klahya, tilikum, my friend the log."
He spoke not now to Skookum, but strong Charlie, and lazy Charlie, understood him. At one hour of the day even the lazy surrendered to the charm of the song of the work and did their damnedest. So Skookum understood that his old friend (both being Sitcum Siwashes, or half breeds) loved the Mill and the work at that hour.