White, the chief Sawyer, the Red Beard, was at his lever and set the carriage for a ten inch Cant when the slabs were off and hurtling to the lath mill. Ginger White no one loved, least of all his Wedger-Off, Simmons (a man, like silent Paul of the Boom, from nowhere), for he too was gingery, with a gleam of the sun in his beard and a spice of the devil in his temper. He was the fierce red type, while White was red but lymphatic, and also a little fat under the jowl and a liar by nature, furtive, not very brave but skilled in Saws. Simmons took a wedge and his maul and waited for the log to come to him. The carriage moved: the saws bit: the sawdust squirted and spurted in a curve with strips of wood which were not sawdust, for they use big gauges in the soft wood of the West and would stare at a sixteenth gauge, to say nothing of less. Now Simmons leapt upon the log and drove in the wedge to keep the closing cut open for the saws. The lengthening cut gave opening for another and another. Simmons and Skookum played swiftly, interchanging the loosened wedge and setting it to loosen the last driven in. The Wedgers-Off on the six-foot log were like birds of prey upon a beast.
"Oh, give it her," yelled Skookum. It was a way of his to yell. But Ginger drove her fast, hoping to hear the saws nip a little and alter their note so that he could complain. Simmons knew it, Skookum knew it. But they played quickly and sure. They leapt before the end of the cut and helped to guide the falling cant upon the skids. Chinamen helped them. The Cant thundered on the skids and was thrust sideways over to the Pony Saw.
"Kloshe kahkwa," said Pete. "That's good!"
And as he sent the carriage backward for another cut, Ginger White looked up and saw Pete standing with his back to the wall. Ginger's dull eye brightened, and he regarded Simmons with increased disfavour. Pete he knew was a good Wedger-Off, a quick, keen man very good for a Siwash, as good as any man in the Mill at such work. He had seen Pete work at the Inlet. Oh, he was good, "hyas kloshe," said White, but as for Simmons, damn! He was red-headed, and Ginger hated a red man for some deep reason.
It was a busy world, but even in the rhythm of the work hatred gleamed and strange passions worked as darkly as the belts, deep in the floor, that drove the saws. Quin, the manager (and part owner), came in at the door by the big Saws, and he saw Pete standing by the open chute. He smiled to himself.
"Back again, and asking for work. Where's his wife, pretty Jenny?"
She was pretty, toketie klootchman, a pretty woman: not a half breed: perhaps, if one knew, less than a quarter breed, tenas Sitcum Siwash, and the blood showed in the soft cheeks. She was bright and had real colour, tender contours, everything but beautiful hands and feet, and they not so bad. As for her face, and her smile (which was something to see), why, said Quin, as he licked his lips, there wasn't a white woman around that was a patch on her. Jenny had smiled on him. But Pete kept his eye on her and so far as it seemed she was true to him. But Quin——
In the busy world as it was Quin's mind ran on Jenny.
"Yes, Sir," he used to say, "we're small but all there. We run for all we're worth, every cent of it, every pound of beef. If you want to see bigger, try the Inlet or Port Blakeley. But we cut here to the last inch. Thirty thousand feet a day ain't a hell of a pile, but it's all we can chew. And, Sir, we chew it!"
He was a broad heavy man, dark and strong and much lighter on his feet than he looked. If there hadn't been Skookum Charlie it might have been Skookum Quin. He was as hard as a cant-log.