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The lumberjacks, wet to the skin, worked with tremendous force and to good purpose, for the organization that Tom Gray had developed and systematized, was as near a perfectly working machine as it was humanly possible to make it.
The fiddler was still sawing away; the bang of hob-nailed shoes on the floor of the shack resounded rhythmically, and Hippy thought, as he ran, of the weariness that the Overland girls must feel after their strenuous evening of constant dancing with the rough and ready lumberjacks who knew neither fatigue for themselves nor for their entertainers.
The two town boys, and, to Bob's surprise, one of his lumberjacks, furnished the comic relief. They frightened the horses allotted them, to begin with; threw the saddles aboard in a mess which it was necessary to untangle; finally clambered on awkwardly and rode precariously amid the yells and laughter of the spectators.
At times he stayed at the bunk house with the lumberjacks, silent as they were silent, or talking of trivial things which were mighty to them, the quality of the food, the depth of the snow, the fact that the little gray squirrels were more plentiful in one part of the woods than another, or that they chattered more in the morning than in the afternoon.
After a hearty supper, well cooked under the observant eyes of Tom Gray, the lumberjacks retired to their shack, and the sound of the fiddle and the shuffle of dancing feet, accompanied by shouts and yells, rose from the bunk-house, which was located near enough to the Overland Riders' camp to enable them to hear, and to see, if they wished, what was going on.
Tom and Hippy hurried upstream to meet the party, and later in the day the Overland girls came up to watch the work already in progress. A knock-down bunk-house was rapidly going up, and the cook with pots and kettles over a brisk fire in the open was preparing supper for the lumberjacks.
He was nearly in when suddenly he raised his body to an erect position, listened for a few seconds, then dropped his burden and sprinted for home. The Overlanders long since had turned in and the lumberjacks were in their bunks, comfortable, and as happy as a lumberjack permits himself to be, when suddenly their bunk-house seemed to be lifted free of the ground.
If the two little children had been alone in the woods they might have thought that the crackling and crashing in the underbrush was made by a bear breaking his way toward them. But they were not thinking of bears, just then. In another instant Bert and Nan saw a man, dressed as were nearly all the "lumberjacks," spring down a little hill and rush at Flossie and Freddie.
"Are there any passenger boats that call there?" she asked. MacDougal shook his head. "Not reg'lar. There's a gas boat goes t' the head of the lake now an' then. She's away now. Ye might hire a launch. Jack Fyfe's camp tender's about to get under way. But ye wouldna care to go on her, I'm thinkin'. She'll be loaded wi' lumberjacks every man drunk as a lord, most like.
After breakfast she left the house and walked to the intersection of B with Water Street. Jules Rondeau and his crew of lumberjacks were there, and with two policemen guarded the crossing. Rondeau glanced at Shirley, surprised, then lifted his hat. Shirley looked from the woods bully to the locomotive and back to Rondeau. "Rondeau," she said, "Mr. Cardigan is a bad man to fight.
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