This sort of work continued until the sun had reached a position so near the zenith that they knew it must be close to the noon hour. And as their muscles had for some little time now, been feeling more or less sore, because of the constant labor, it was decided as usual to take a rest.
They would not let a chance pass by to have a fire going, even though the day had turned out quite warm. With such vast quantities of easy burning pine all around them, and Amos just wild to always take care of the fire, which he dearly loved, of course, they could not resist the temptation; and soon a crackling blaze was sending up its cheery song, such as has bolstered up the spirits of many a lonely camper all over the known world; for the fire is certainly one of man’s finest servants; but like some other things, a very bad master, once it is allowed to have its own head.
About an hour and a half afterwards, the voyage was resumed, though none of the boys paddled with just the same vim that had marked the start. It was now more in the nature of pure grit that carried them steadily along; the pleasure had mostly petered out during that hard dash of the morning.
And as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen perceptibly, it might be noticed that they were more frequently mentioning the fact that this place or that seemed to offer pretty fine prospects for a night’s lodging, though thus far no one openly advocated bringing the day’s run to a close.
There were parts of this section of country where the great Overton Lumber Company had its numerous squads of men busy in the winter season, cutting timber, which, however was getting more and more scarce in the peninsula of Michigan every year.
It chanced that there was a rival company, also a big corporation, which, being exceedingly jealous of the success attending the work of the Overton, never tired of trying all sorts of games calculated to run the other out of the district. Teddy amused his camp mates many times, when sitting around the fire of nights, by relating how his father managed to outwit the owners of this rival concern on more than a few occasions, when they came to loggerheads.
And the men were almost as bitter toward each other as their employers; so that each, winter there were one or more regular battles when the Overton loggers chanced to be cutting within a few miles of the rival camp.
“We’ve all got to clear out of this before a great while,” Teddy would remark, doubtless echoing the words he had heard his father say; “because the available timber is getting less and less every year. That’s what makes things so warm between the two companies, you see. Amos, here, used to work for the Combine once, and he knows what underhanded tricks they keep on trying to play, with the idea of forcing us out of the State, so as to leave things to them. But it don’t work. My dad is some fighter himself; and with the law back of him, he just laughs at threats. But sometimes it makes mother afraid that they may do something desperate. Once a shot was fired at him, and the bullet clipped a piece out of his hat. Never learned who did it; but dad always believed it was a thug hired by the other company to scare him a little. But we’re still here on deck, and this year expect to cut more timber than ever. Might as well get our share of it while the stuff lasts.”
The three paddlers kept up their steady work, as the sun headed down into the western sky.