"The Siwash'll be on Jack's tracks," said the Men of the Mill, "for
sure he'll be after him, hyak koolie! What the thunder did the
little klootchman see in Jack! Oh, hell, he warn't nothin' but a
special kind of sea hobo, boys, allers on the go: a blanket-stiff at
sea, that's what. And drink--we should say so! And mean, oh, there
ain't words! If Pete runs into him----"
Pete wanted blood, that's a fact, but when a man wants blood and gets
liquor the blood stays unshed unless the victim is right handy. That
is also a fact, all wool, and a yard wide.
Another fact was of great importance, and that is that Pete owed the
Mill dollars instead of the Mill owing him any, and to get across to
Victoria in the Island took silver, t'kope chikamin, in the shape of
dollars. And Pete couldn't swim, not so much as a hundred yards. He
was no Fish Indian. And the Straits are some miles across.
Pete woke out of his drunk early in the morning and saw three facts
in the light of dawn, saw them come out of the darkness and stand up
before him, just as the Mill did and the tin-roofed shining Cannery
across the River, where Chinamen wallowed in shining salmon for
Eastern consumption. Pete saw the array of facts and at the back of
his Indian brain he had a notion of destiny, as they all have. Jenny
had run: he had "halo dolla," and it was a long swim across the
Straits of Georgia, in spite of all the islands a man might rest at.
"She hyu bad klootchman," said Pete. "I no care one damn. I take
another by-by. She too much pletty, no sit down, klatawa with Jack."
There wasn't a drink for Pete that morning, but he lighted a fire and
made some "caupy" or coffee.
"I go work at Moola alla same," said Pete. "I no dlink, I make
dolla: I get another good klootchman. By-by Jack go to sea, leave
Jenny, she go hell. That all light. She damn bad klootchman."
So when the Whistle, the great prophet of the strenuous life, yelled
the "Get up" in quick time, he was ready, and as determined as any
Blackfoot at a Siwash stake to show nothing of his torment. The
second whistle that shrieked "Get out" sent him off, and the day
began with the usual preliminary jawing-match in the Engine-room
where fiery monsters ate sawdust.
"Ha, Pete," said Skookum Charlie, whose big bulk was spread on a
sawdust pile where the glare of an open furnace shone on him. "He
come to wuk' alla same."
Long Mac with the blue eyes and keen clean American look was there.
And next him was black-a-vised, beady-eyed Chihuahua, far more
ancient Mexican than Spanish, and then Hans Anderssen and Johann
Smit, both seamen. And with them showed the fair and devilish face
of Spanish Joe with the beautiful voice and a soul fit for hell. And
the Engineer, a little Scotty from Glasgow, went about his work with
one Chinee helper as if they were not there, and only said "damn your
jaw," if they got in his way.
The crowd looked at Pete, who swung in boldly enough with his head up.
"Hullo," said the crowd with sympathy. But Joe laughed.
"You' klootchman she pulled up her stakes and quit, eh?" he asked
with a sneer.
"That so," said Pete quietly. "I tell her to go night befo' las'
night. She no good in fac', bad klootchman, get dlunk, no savvy
cook. Thlow my muckamuck on the floo'. I say go. I tink no
klootchman any good. Jack Shipman soon tire of she."
"Perfectamente," said Joe, "you spik truth. All women are bad."
Scotty managed to jam Joe in the pit of the stomach with the handle
of the huge wooden shovel with which he was feeding the greedy fires.
"Beg your pardon," said Scotty with a grin, "but they arn't all bad."
"Every damn one," said Joe, writhing.
"All klootchmen no good, I say," Pete cried once more.
"You had a mother, lad," said the Engineer severely.
Pete shook his head.
"That all light, Mr. Engineer, but she no good neither. She sell my
poo' damn sister to the man at Kamloops that had the ranche Cultus
Muckamuck Quin got now, sell her for two dolla, I tink. And now
Cultus got her too."
Scotty having no more remarks to make, yanked the whistle lanyard.
It was six o'clock.
"This is a hell of a country for a mahn wi' ony releegion in him,"
said Scotty.
He turned savagely on his Chinese helper.
"Now then, Fan, you wooden image, get a move on you: hump yersel',
man, or I'll scupper you."
The gift of work to unhappy mortals is that they cannot work and be
wholly unhappy, and Pete sucked a grim kind of pleasure out of the
labour that was his, and found some anodyne in it for the aching
wound he bore in his foolish childish heart. That day the labour was
great, for Ginger White had a mind to set the pace and make it fiery.
It was, as the men knew, one of his bad, his wicked days, such a day
as that on which he had driven Pete's predecessor to a standstill.
When Ginger's face was tallow against his fiery beard they knew what
to expect, and got it every time. It was said that on these
occasions he had quarrelled with his wife, but the truth is he had a
vicious nature and a love of work together. It gave him pleasure to
see the great saws do their work, and a greater pleasure still to see
a man turn white and fail.
But now he had Pete, not Simmons, and the devil himself at the Saws
would not have broken Pete that day. For there was a hard devil in
his heart, and he grinned savagely as he saw White's motions get
every minute quicker and quicker. He nudged Skookum Charlie.
"This Ginger White have one bad day. The debbel, how he go. You
see!"
They saw. He cut them wicked slabs, slabs that had an unholy weight,
with all of it in the butt. When they fell they dropped between the
skids and got up and kicked. One struck Skookum on the nose and made
it bleed, another threw Pete. But though they both knew that Ginger
gave it them hot and heavy and wasted wood in slabs to do it, they
made no sign. This was a day that no one would be beaten. All the
men knew by instinct and by knowledge that this was to be a day of
hell, when the cut would be great and Ginger would go home half dead
with his endeavours to work them up. They set their teeth, even as
the saws' teeth were set in another fashion, and prepared to chew the
lumber that he hurled to them.
The atmosphere was strange, charged, electric, strained. There were
days when the Tyee Sawyer left them slack, and went easy. Now they
jumped, their eyes were bright, they sweated, got alive, moved like
lightning. Each was an automaton; each a note struck by the Player.
And he played, oh, tilikum, he played!
This was work, tilikum, such as even the Stick Moola hadn't known.
The engines knew it, and the steam gauges told it and the fires, and
the sawdust carriers. Chinamen knew it and shrieked horrid oaths at
each other. The belts knew it and squealed. Scotty knew it and
groaned, for he alone, bar accidents, could stop Ginger's drunken
debauch of labour.
But the men he played on knew it best and almost cheered him when
they got the pace and found it at first so easy. They were all
young, not an old man among them, Ginger White himself was the senior
of them all. They could love and work and fight and play hell, for
they had youth in them. They had to show it to the song and dance of
the Saw, the song and dance of the flying dust. The engines ran
easy, and their muscles played beneath a glistening moist skin as
with open shirts they did what came to their hands. "Go it, you
devils," and "Let her scoot," and "Oh, hell," they said.
They smiled and were happy enough, but as the hum increased and the
great skids got full over against the Pony Saw, you might have seen
Long Mac's smile die down into a good settled seriousness, quite
worth seeing. Long Mac had a way of dreaming as he worked, for he
had a power of thought and was sadly intelligent, but when Ginger
started trying them high, he had no time to think, well as he knew
all things a saw-mill man may and shall know. The skids were piled
high, you shall understand, you greenhorns, and he knew how it would
rejoice Ginger White to see that they would take no more, while
everything the wedgers-off tried to sling on the pile rolled
backwards to the very rollers. That would please White: he would
give a shrug of his shoulders as if to say--
"What a damned loafing lazy lot I've to do with!"
"To hell with Ginger," said Mac. He set his teeth. The lumber flew:
he took risks: for swift running in a Mill means risks. Some of the
lumber was shaky, ring-shakes and wind-shakes were in it, and in some
of the wet-shakes fine white gum. When the saw strikes a shake the
loose pieces work out: some are like to touch the teeth of the saw
and get picked up! What that means is that the helper to the Pony
Saw is shot at by jagged lumps of wood: they come by whizzing like a
horrid bullet. Mac and his man watched and at times Mac lifted his
hand and his helper ducked as the Saw said "Phit, phit," and threw
things at him. It was exciting, it made the blood run fast in his
veins to know that at any moment he might be killed, and be so quiet.
This was the battle of the lumber: for saws kill men and logs, kill
them and maim them, oho, but the day was fine and the fight long!
Down in the boom the man of the Boom, the man with the long pole, who
made the logs swim to their ascent to the Temple, whence they were
dragged by the Bull-Wheel, had his work cut out, but worked. If he
kept Ginger waiting, Ginger would skip over the skids and come to the
open way that led down to the Boom and use sulphurous language.
"What the--how the--why the--oh, hell, are we to shut down and go
home? Hump yourself, Paul, hump yourself."
And much worse if it hadn't been that Paul, a thin silent dark man,
was reputed dangerous, and was said to have killed a man in Texas,
somewhere in the neighbourhood of El Paso, where not a few pass up
the golden stairs on an unholy sudden. But the atmosphere down there
is fine, in its way: you shall not believe otherwise, I entreat you.
It was towards noon when Mac had Ginger beat or near it. Or if not
that, he saw that Mac wasn't to be overcome. The Trimmers, Wong, the
Chinee, and Willett, the Englishman, had the thing down fine, for
Wong knew his business and Willett was at hard as a keg of nails or a
coil of barbed wire. He could claw and sling and work and sweat with
any.
And still Ginger sent the thing going and again spurted, for Quin
came in!
"Stand back, clear the track for Mr. Josephus Orange-Blossom," said
the nigger, the coon, the "shiny" (not a Sheeny, by the way) of the
song. That was the way Quin felt. He felt like someone in
particular. Indeed he always did, but now with Jenny at his house,
clad in beautiful clothes and looking "a real daisy," he was very
proud of himself. That's the way the male has, if the truth be said,
men or moose or wapiti, or a lion or a tiger for that matter: or, let
us say, a tom-cat.
He was full of himself! And all he wanted to do now was to "fire"
Pete and get him out of the place, as was natural.
Some men would have done it even without excuse, though that is
difficult, but George Quin had some natural or unnatural notion of
justice and couldn't go so far. He watched Pete with critical
half-savage eyes. Was there a glint of pity in them? Perhaps,
tilikum, for a man is hard to know.
If this was Ginger's day and Ginger's hour when Quin looked in, it
was Pete's day too, for he threw his poor outraged Indian soul into
labour and did, oh, he did very well. Quin saw that he did, he was
pleased with the man, and seeing that he had to pay him, the work
pleased him. Pete's face was hard now and his eyes glittered: his
muscles stood up: his face and neck were wet: they glistened. He
went like a machine: and never made a mistake. He climbed a
five-foot log on the carriage close to the teeth of the saw (the
sawdust was in his hair and it looked white and woolly) like a
cougar, at one bound. He worked up Skookum Charlie in like manner
and made the Siwash like it.
"Oh, he's good," said Quin approving and yet savage. "Oh, he's----"
and then Scotty yanked the whistle lanyard and the whistle said,
"Knock off, you galoots, galoots, galoo-oots!"
The men threw up their heads, and most wiped their brows as they
straightened their backs and said "Oo!" They breathed and filled
their lungs and then thought of their empty bellies and started for
the Hash-house. But White, always polite and obsequious, stayed a
while with Quin.
"We've cut a lot, Mr. Quin," said White; "the boom's nigh empty."
"More in to-day," replied Quin. "How's your wedger-off doin'? If he
don't suit you, fire him, White."
"He's the best man I've had this year," said White. He did not
understand why Quin grunted and turned his back on him. If he had
known Pete would have gone that day.
"What's wrong?" asked White. "Well, I made 'em skip to-day."
So the men thought as they piled into the hash, and said what they
thought of him and grubbed in anticipation of an afternoon the equal
of the morning.
"He's a swine but a first-class sawyer, and no mistake, no fatal
error, eh, what? He made us skip and sweat to-day, but never piled
us up! That was what the tallow-faced swine was after, eh?"
"You bet! Here Fan Tong, or Hang Chow, more chow this way! White's
a swine; oh, he made us skip."
"'E's a 'oly terror," said Willett.
"A tough from Terror Flat!"
"No razor in his boot, though! There ain't no real fight in
Tallow-Chops. Pass the mustard."
What a good life it was! And the chewing was good enough for a boss
hobo, death on three fine squares or set-downs, and don't you forget
it!
But Pete grubbed silently in Indian Annie's, who moaned to him about
Jenny.
"Damn klootchman, I forget her," said Pete. Yet many days passed and
he did not forget.
When they were all out of the Mill, Quin stood and stared at the dead
saws without seeing them.
"It's hard lines: but I can't fire him," said Quin.