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As swamper he had more or less to do with a cant-hook in helping the teamsters roll the end of the log on the little "dray." He soon caught the knack. Towards Christmas he had become a fairly efficient cant-hook man, and was helping roll the great sticks of timber up the slanting skids.
To rectify the fault, Thorpe dug his cant-hook into the timber and threw his weight on the stock. He hoped in this manner to check correspondingly the ascent of his end. In other words, he took the place, on his side, of the preventing sliver, so equalizing the pressure and forcing the timber to its proper position. Instead of rolling, the log slid.
Tug Burke was pointing with a cant-hook in his excitement. "Get it quick. See? He's " The man's excitement found reflection in the whole concourse of onlookers. There was a furious movement in the human body crushed on the ground beneath the man they called Bull. Its knees came up under his adversary's body with a terrific jolt. The purpose of maiming was obvious. "Gee! I'm glad."
The stock of the cant-hook was jerked from his hands. He fell back, and the cant-hook, after clinging for a moment to the rough bark, snapped down and hit him a crushing blow on the top of the head. Had a less experienced man than Jim Gladys been stationed at the other end, Thorpe's life would have ended there.
"Holiday, hell!" snorted the younger man. "We ought to be down to Bull's Dam before now " "And Bull's Dam is half-way to Redding," mocked a reptilian and red-headed giant on the log, "and Redding is the happy childhood home of " The young man leaped to his feet and seized from a pile of tools a peavy a dangerous weapon, like a heavy cant-hook, but armed at the end with a sharp steel shoe.
With the utmost coolness Gladys swarmed the slanting face of the load; interposed the length of his cant-hook stock between the log and it; held it exactly long enough to straighten the timber, but not so long as to crush his own head and arm; and ducked, just as the great piece of wood rumbled over the end of the skids and dropped with a thud into the place Norton, the "top" man, had prepared for it.
Or perhaps the stick is too large and too heavy to be carried in such a way. In that case it must be cut into short billets and rolled, as a cant-hook man rolls a log down a skidway. Only the Beaver has no cant-hook to help him, and no skidway, either. All he can do is to push with all his might, and there are so many, many grass-tufts and little hillocks in the way!
When at work his little wide eyes flickered with a baleful, wicked light, his huge voice bellowed through the woods in a torrent of imprecations and commands, his splendid muscles swelled visibly even under his loose blanket-coat as he wrenched suddenly and savagely at some man's stubborn cant-hook stock. A hint of reluctance or opposition brought his fist to the mark with irresistible impact.
Sometimes he allows himself to be carried up bodily, clinging to the cant-hook like an acrobat to a bar, until the log has rolled once; when, his weapon loosened, he drops lightly, easily to the ground.
For the first few days matters went very smoothly, the river being deep and swift, and the logs giving little trouble. Of course, numbers of them were continually stranding on the banks, but the watchful drivers soon spied them out, and with a push of the pike-pole, or drag of the cant-hook, sent them floating off again on their journey.
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