Dyer knew that the precedent was indisputable.
“Why didn't you cut on eight then?” he asked, still in peremptory tones.
“Didn't have no one to show us where to begin,” drawled a voice in the corner.
Dyer turned sharp on his heel and went out.
“Sore as a boil, ain't he!” commented old Jackson Hines with a chuckle.
In the cook camp Dyer was saying to the cook, “Well, anyway, we'll have dinner early and get a good start for this afternoon.”
The cook again laid down his paper. “I'm tending to this job of cook,” said he, “and I'm getting the meals on time. Dinner will be on time to-day not a minute early, and not a minute late.”
Then he resumed his perusal of the adventures of ladies to whom the illustrations accorded magnificent calf-development.
The crew worked on the marsh that afternoon, and the subsequent days of the week. They labored conscientiously but not zealously. There is a deal of difference, and the lumber-jack's unaided conscience is likely to allow him a certain amount of conversation from the decks of skidways. The work moved slowly. At Christmas a number of the men “went out.” Most of them were back again after four or five days, for, while men were not plenty, neither was work. The equilibrium was nearly exact.
But the convivial souls had lost to Dyer the days of their debauch, and until their thirst for recuperative “Pain Killer,” “Hinckley” and Jamaica Ginger was appeased, they were not much good. Instead of keeping up to fifty thousand a day, as Radway had figured was necessary, the scale would not have exceeded thirty.
Dyer saw all this plainly enough, but was not able to remedy it. That was not entirely his fault. He did not dare give the delinquents their time, for he would not have known where to fill their places. This lay in Radway's experience. Dyer felt that responsibilities a little too great had been forced on him, which was partly true. In a few days the young man's facile conscience had covered all his shortcomings with the blanket excuse. He conceived that he had a grievance against Radway!
Radway returned to camp by the 6th of January. He went on snowshoes over the entire job; and then sat silently in the office smoking “Peerless” in his battered old pipe. Dyer watched him amusedly, secure in his grievance in case blame should be attached to him. The jobber looked older. The lines of dry good-humor about his eyes had subtly changed to an expression of pathetic anxiety. He attached no blame to anybody, but rose the next morning at horn-blow, and the men found they had a new master over them.