Dan Kenyon paused abruptly; the hum of conversation ceased, and silence fell upon the room as Bryce Cardigan strolled in the door, nodded to the men, and slid in on the bench to a seat beside the head sawyer.
“Hello, Dan—hello, Zeb,” he said and shook hands with each. “I'm mighty glad to see you both again. Hello, everybody. I'm the new boss, so I suppose I'd better introduce myself—there are so many new faces here. I'm Bryce Cardigan.”
“Yes,” Zeb Curry volunteered, “an' he's like his daddy. He ain't ashamed to work with his men, an' he ain't ashamed to eat with his men, nuther. Glad you're back with us again, boy—mighty glad. Dan, here, he's gittin' slacker'n an old squaw with his work an' needs somebody to jerk him up, while the rest o' these here—”
“I noticed that about Dan,” Bryce interrupted craftily. “He's slowing up, Zeb. He must have been fifteen seconds late this morning—or perhaps,” he added “you were fifteen seconds earlier than the clock.”
Dan grinned, and Bryce went on seriously: “I'm afraid you're getting too old to ride the log-carriage, Dan. You've been at it a long time; so, with the utmost good will in the world toward you, you're fired. I might as well tell you now. You know me, Dan. I always did dislike beating about the bush.”
“Fired!” Dan Kenyon's eyes popped with amazement and horror. “Fired—after thirty years!” he croaked.
“Fired!” There was unmistakable finality in Bryce's tones. “You're hired again, however, at a higher salary, as mill-superintendent. You can get away with that job, can't you, Dan? In fact,” he added without waiting for the overjoyed Dan to answer him, “you've got to get away with it, because I discharged the mill-superintendent I found on the job when I got down here this morning. He's been letting too many profits go into the slab-fire. In fact, the entire plant has gone to glory. Fire-hose old and rotten—couldn't stand a hundred-pound pressure; fire-buckets and water-barrels empty, axes not in their proper places, fire-extinguishers filled with stale chemical—why, the smallest kind of a fire here would get beyond our control with that man on the job. Besides, he's changed the grading-rules. I found the men putting clear boards with hard-grained streaks in them in with the No. 1 clear. The customer may not kick at a small percentage of No. 2 in his No. 1 but it's only fair to give it to him at two dollars a thousand less.”
“Well,” purred Zeb Curry, “they don't grade lumber as strict nowadays as they used to before you went away. Colonel Pennington says we're a lot o' back numbers out this way an' too generous with our grades. First thing he did was to call a meetin' of all the Humboldt lumber manufacturers an' organize 'em into an association. Then he had the gradin'-rules changed. The retailers hollered for a while, but bimeby they got used to it.”
“Did my father join that association?” Bryce demanded quickly.
“Yes. He told Pennington he wasn't goin' to be no obstructionist in the trade, but he did kick like a bay steer on them new gradin'-rules an' refused to conform to 'em. Said he was too old an' had been too long in business to start gougin' his customers at his time o' life. So he got out o' the association.”