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They showed her the flooring he whip-sawed, the mantles, doors, and window-casings he helped make, the rails he split, the cabinets he and his father made, and scores of relics cut from planks and rails he handled. They told what they remembered of his rhymes and how he would walk miles to hear a speech or sermon, and, returning, would repeat the whole in "putty good imitation."
He was wet with sweat, he was muddy and out of breath, when he finally overtook them. "Whew!" he panted. "Thought I'd never run you down ... Well, set yourselves." "What's wrong?" demanded the woman. "Plenty. You've been double-crossed, whip-sawed. Your noble red men have quit you; they dumped your stuff at the river and made a deal at double rates to move Sam Kirby's freight.
He added uneasily: "I wish Slim would get in." His simple preparations were soon complete, and when he closed the heavy door of whip-sawed lumber it was necessary to light the small kerosene lamp, although the dollar watch ticking on its nail said the hour was but four-thirty. He eyed a pile of soiled dishes in disgust, then set a lard bucket of water to heat. "Two days' gatherings!
As he drew his Stetson toward him, its brim came into violent contact with the porcelain medicine cup. The cup crashed to the floor, its contents splashing widely over the whip-sawed boards.
Through his recital she had followed every word with keenest interest. "An' I must say," Lon went on, "that I was disappointed sore on not meeting Dave here to-night." Lon served supper at one end of the table of whip-sawed spruce, and we fell to eating. A howling of the dogs took the woman to the door. She opened it an inch and listened. "Where is Dave Walsh?" I asked, in an undertone.
Our quarters consisted of an excellent twenty-by-sixteen cabin, made of whip-sawed spruce timber, the round log side of course being outside. Half of it, partitioned off, was devoted to our office a very complete one, I may say, for Alaska.
"Will you look at the lumber he's whip-sawed!" Astonishment was in his voice! "Whip-sawin' lumber is the hardest work a man ever did. I'll bet the squaw was on the other end of that saw; I never heard of Dubois hiring help. Uh-huh, he uses the Carriboo riffles. Look at the work he's been to punchin' all those holes in that sheet-iron.
Few of the houses contained more than three rooms, but the rooms were large as halls, one hundred by eighty feet, some of them, with whip-sawed floors, clay-chinked log walls, parchment windows, and furniture hewed out of the green fir trees of the mountains. But the luxurious living made up for the bareness of furnishings. Shining samovars sung in every room.
The Trio were still just a trifle afraid of him, and he, on his side, never pressed a dangerous issue too far. But this is a little to anticipate. One bitter gray morning, that had reduced Perry Davis to a solid lump of ice, O'Flynn, the Colonel, and the Boy were bringing into the cabin the last of the whip-sawed boards. The Colonel halted and looked steadily up the river.
There was a kitchen where Toy reigned, an arbitrary monarch, and a long bunk-house built of lumber sawed by an old-fashioned water-wheel which itself had been laboriously whip-sawed from heavy logs.
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