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.

The next morning Radway transferred Molly and Jenny, with little
Fabian Laveque and two of the younger men, to Pike Lake. There,
earlier in the season, a number of pines had been felled out on the
ice, cut in logs, and left in expectation of ice thick enough to
bear the travoy "dray." Owing to the fact that the shores of Pike
Lake were extremely precipitous, it had been impossible to travoy
the logs up over the hill.