The "boss's table" was more leisurely. Bob was introduced to the sealers. They proved to be, with one exception, young fellows of twenty-one or two, keen-eyed, brown-faced, alert and active. They impressed Bob as belonging to the clerk class, with something added by the outdoor, varied life. Indeed, later he discovered them to be sons of carpenters, mechanics and other higher-class, intelligent workingmen; boys who had gone through high school, and perhaps a little way into the business college; ambitious youngsters, each with a different idea in the back of his head. They had in common an air of capability, of complete adequacy for the task in life they had selected. The sixth sealer was much older and of the riverman type. He had evidently come up from the ranks.
There was no general conversation. Talk confined itself strictly to shop. Bob, his imagination already stirred by the incidents of his stroll, listened eagerly. Fox was getting in touch with the whole situation.
"The main drive is down," Tally told him, "but the Cedar Branch hasn't got to the river yet. What in blazes did you want to buy that little strip this late in the day for?"
"Had to take it—on a deal," said Fox briefly. "Why? Is it hard driving? I've never been up there. Welton saw to all that."
"It's hell. The pine's way up at the headwaters. You have to drive her the whole length of the stream, through a mixed hardwood and farm country. Lots of patridges and mossbacks, but no improvements. Not a dam the whole length of her. Case of hit the freshet water or get hung."
"Well, we've done that kind of a job before."
"Yes, before!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half-crew of good, old-fashioned white-water birlers, I'd rest easy. But we don't have no crews like we used to. The old bully boys have all moved out west—or died."
"Getting old—like us," bantered Fox. "Why haven't you died off too, Jim?"
"I'm never going to die," stated the old man, "I'm going to live to turn into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a fact. There's plenty left can ride a log all right, but they're a tough lot. It's too close here to Marion."
"That is too bad," condoled Fox, "especially as I remember so well what a soft-spoken, lamb-like little tin angel you used to be, Jim."