“That’s entirely different,” the girl said.
“Y—yes, I suppose it is,” Tom conceded. “But I don’t know, up in lumber camps and places like that they all eat and bunk together, foremen and all—so I’ve heard.”
“You see,” said Ferris, “we have to watch our step up here. Our outfit is a sort of a potpourri. They’re not regular laborers. We can’t get laborers to come up here. Some of them are pretty well educated and started out in good homes. We have to be careful.
“You’re just up here to help out and tip them off about tree felling and one thing or another that scouts learn. I don’t want to use the word boss. It isn’t a case of boss and laborers. It’s more a case of scout and tenderfoots. Get me? I don’t want them walking off and leaving us flat, that’s the main thing. You’ll see,” he added cheerily. “It’s kind of different.”
“I understand,” Tom said.
“Lonely mountains are no places for hoity-toity distinctions,” said Ferris. “This is a camp up here. See?”
“I get you,” Tom said.
“You’ll use your own judgment,” said Ferris.
“Well,” Tom said, “I guess I wouldn’t know how to be a boss anyway. I’m just going to pile in and help. I have a hunch I’ll bunk right in with them—friends all ’round.”
There was a minute of silence, except for the steady trudging of the patient horses and occasionally the sound of a stone dislodged by their digging hoofs and rolling down the mountainside. It was not until Tom gave evidence of withdrawing to his seat on the rear edge of the buckboard that the girl observed: