That evening he picked out one of the best. As he was about to inquire the price, Radway drew the van book toward him, inquiring,
“Let's see; what's the name?”
In an instant Thorpe was charged on the book with three dollars and a half, although his work that day had earned him less than a dollar. On his way back to the men's shanty he could not help thinking how easy it would be for him to leave the next morning two dollars and a half ahead. He wondered if this method of procedure obtained in all the camps.
The newcomer's first day of hard work had tired him completely. He was ready for nothing so much as his bunk. But he had forgotten that it was Saturday night. His status was still to assure.
They began with a few mild tricks. Shuffle the Brogan followed Hot Back. Thorpe took all of it good-naturedly. Finally a tall individual with a thin white face, a reptilian forehead, reddish hair, and long baboon arms, suggested tossing in a blanket. Thorpe looked at the low ceiling, and declined.
“I'm with the game as long as you say, boys,” said he, “and I'll have as much fun as anybody, but that's going too far for a tired man.”
The reptilian gentleman let out a string of oaths whose meaning might be translated, “We'll see about that!”
Thorpe was a good boxer, but he knew by now the lumber-jack's method of fighting,—anything to hurt the other fellow. And in a genuine old-fashioned knock-down-and-drag-out rough-and-tumble your woodsman is about the toughest customer to handle you will be likely to meet. He is brought up on fighting. Nothing pleases him better than to get drunk and, with a few companions, to embark on an earnest effort to “clean out” a rival town. And he will accept cheerfully punishment enough to kill three ordinary men. It takes one of his kind really to hurt him.
Thorpe, at the first hostile movement, sprang back to the door, seized one of the three-foot billets of hardwood intended for the stove, and faced his opponents.
“I don't know which of you boys is coming first,” said he quietly, “but he's going to get it good and plenty.”