"We're alive," said Quin the manager. They worked where he was, and, hard as they had worked before, White set a livelier pace and made his men sweat. Quin smiled and understood that Ginger White was that kind of a man. Now Mac at the Pony Saw always took a breather when Quin came in. Just now he walked from his saw, dropped down through a trapdoor into a weltering chaos of sudden death and threw the tightener off his saw's belt. The Pony Saw ceased to hum and whined a little and ran slow and died. The blurred rim of steel became separate teeth. Long Mac stood over the saw and tightened a tooth with his tools and took out one and replaced it with a better washleather to keep it firm. He moved slow but again descended and let the tightener fall upon the belt. The Pony Saw sprang to valiant life and screamed for work. Quin smiled at Mac, for he knew he was a worker from "Way Back," and the further back you go the worse they get! By the Lord, you bet!
So much for Quin for the time. The Stick Moola, as the Chinook has it, is the theme.
It was a beast by the water, that lived on logs. It crawled into the River for logs, and reached out its arms for logs. It desired logs with its sharp teeth. It hungered for Cedar (there's good red cedar of sorts in the ranges, and fine white cedar in the Selkirks), and for Spruce (the fine tree it is!) and Douglas Fir and Hemlock or anything to cut that wasn't true hardwood. It could eat some of the soppy Slope Maple but disdained it. It was greedy and loved lumber. Men cut its dinner afar off and towed it around to the Mill, to the arms, the open arms of the Boom with Paul helping as a kind of great kitchen boy.
At early dawn its whistle blew, for in the dark (or near it) the underlings of the Engineer stirred up the furnaces and threw in sawdust and woke the steam. At "half after five" the men turned out, came tumbling in for breakfast in the boarded shack by the Store and fed before they fed the Mill. The first whistle sounded hungry, the second found the men hungry no more, but ready to feed the Beast.
In winter it was no joke turning out to begin the day early, but when frost had the Fraser in its arms the Mill shut down and went to sleep. One can't get one's logs out of eighteen inches of ice and then a frozen log cuts hard: it shines when cut. But at this season, it was bright at five and sunny at six. The men came with a summer willingness (that is, with less unwillingness than in frost time, for, remember, it takes work to make work easy and your beginner each day hates the beginning) and they were drawn from all ends of the earth.
There were British Canadians:
And Americans: from Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Iowa and the Lord knows where.
And Spaniards: one a man of Castile, and one from Mexico.
There were two Kanucks of the old sort from the East or there was one at any rate.
There were Englishmen. Well, there was one Jack Mottram and he a seaman.