In the office shanty one evening about a week later, Radway and his scaler happened to be talking over the situation.The scaler, whose name was Dyer, slouched back in the shadow, watching his great honest superior as a crafty, dainty cat might watch the blunderings of a St.Bernard.When he spoke, it was with a mockery so subtle as quite to escape the perceptions of the lumberman.Dyer had a precise little black mustache whose ends he was constantly twisting into points, black eyebrows, and long effeminate black lashes.You would have expected his dress in the city to be just a trifle flashy, not enough so to be loud, but sinning as to the trifles of good taste.
The two men conversed in short elliptical sentences, using many technical terms.
"That 'seventeen' white pine is going to underrun," said Dyer."It won't skid over three hundred thousand.""It's small stuff," agreed Radway, "and so much the worse for us;but the Company'll stand in on it because small stuff like that always over-runs on the mill-cut."The scaler nodded comprehension.
"When you going to dray-haul that Norway across Pike Lake?""To-morrow.She's springy, but the books say five inches of ice will hold a team, and there's more than that.How much are we putting in a day, now?""About forty thousand."
Radway fell silent.
"That's mighty little for such a crew," he observed at last, doubtfully.
"I always said you were too easy with them.You got to drive them more.""Well, it's a rough country," apologized Radway, trying, as was his custom, to find excuses for the other party as soon as he was agreed with in his blame, "there's any amount of potholes; and, then, we've had so much snow the ground ain't really froze underneath.It gets pretty soft in some of them swamps.Can't figure on putting up as much in this country as we used to down on the Muskegon."The scaler smiled a thin smile all to himself behind the stove.Big John Radway depended so much on the moral effect of approval or disapproval by those with whom he lived.It amused Dyer to withhold the timely word, so leaving the jobber to flounder between his easy nature and his sense of what should be done.
Dyer knew perfectly well that the work was behind, and he knew the reason.For some time the men had been relaxing their efforts.
They had worked honestly enough, but a certain snap and vim had lacked.This was because Radway had been too easy on them.
Your true lumber-jack adores of all things in creation a man whom he feels to be stronger than himself.If his employer is big enough to drive him, then he is willing to be driven to the last ounce of his strength.But once he gets the notion that his "boss" is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his health, he loses interest in working for that man.So a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken as so many indications of a desire to conciliate.And conciliation means weakness every time.Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another.As you value your authority, the love of your men, and the completion of your work, keep a bluff brow and an unbending singleness of purpose.
Radway's peculiar temperament rendered him liable to just this mistake.It was so much easier for him to do the thing himself than to be harsh to the point of forcing another to it, that he was inclined to take the line of least resistance when it came to a question of even ordinary diligence.He sought often in his own mind excuses for dereliction in favor of a man who would not have dreamed of seeking them for himself.A good many people would call this kindness of heart.Perhaps it was; the question is a little puzzling.But the facts were as stated.
Thorpe had already commented on the feeling among the men, though, owing to his inexperience, he was not able to estimate its full value.The men were inclined to a semi-apologetic air when they spoke of their connection with the camp.Instead of being honored as one of a series of jobs, this seemed to be considered as merely a temporary halting-place in which they took no pride, and from which they looked forward in anticipation or back in memory to better things.
"Old Shearer, he's the bully boy," said Bob Stratton."I remember when he was foremap for M.& D.at Camp 0.Say, we did hustle them saw-logs in! I should rise to remark! Out in th' woods by first streak o' day.I recall one mornin' she was pretty cold, an' the boys grumbled some about turnin' out.'Cold,' says Tim, 'you sons of guns! You got your ch'ice.It may be too cold for you in the woods, but it's a damm sight too hot fer you in hell, an' you're going to one or the other!' And he meant it too.Them was great days! Forty million a year, and not a hitch."One man said nothing in the general discussion.It was his first winter in the woods, and plainly in the eyes of the veterans this experience did not count.It was a "faute de mieux," in which one would give an honest day's work, and no more.
As has been hinted, even the inexperienced newcomer noticed the lack of enthusiasm, of unity.Had he known the loyalty, devotion, and adoration that a thoroughly competent man wins from his "hands,"the state of affairs would have seemed even more surprising.The lumber-jack will work sixteen, eighteen hours a day, sometimes up to the waist in water full of floating ice; sleep wet on the ground by a little fire; and then next morning will spring to work at daylight with an "Oh, no, not tired; just a little stiff, sir!" in cheerful reply to his master's inquiry,--for the right man! Only it must be a strong man,--with the strength of the wilderness in his eye.
