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Updated: August 6, 2024
"Once in a while some wandering timber-cruiser like Stackpole would drop in on us, and you can understand that as a general thing they were mighty welcome, for they brought us news of the outer world.
This came in a little while, when, the coffee and stew having been warmed, the giant timber-cruiser was busily employed in disposing of the same.
It might be he would discover the fire of some Ishmaelite of the forest, a wandering "timber-cruiser," marking out new and promising fields for those he served, and surveying the scene of possible future bustling logging camps. Otherwise the country at this time was a vast unknown land, seldom penetrated by human kind, save the Indian fur gatherers.
Lots o' pluck to come so fur, fellers; how's the huntin' now, and I hopes as how ye ain't settin' up in business as rivals ter me, ha! ha! In course I seen yer blaze jest a ways back, an' thinks I, what's the use in bunkin' alone ternight, Stackpole, yer old timber-cruiser, when thar's companionable chaps near by who won't object p'raps ter sharin' ther fire with ye?
The giant timber-cruiser watched them get their sleeping-bags ready, that is, Cuthbert and Eli, with more or less curiosity, for evidently he knew little or nothing about such Arctic necessities, even though he had accompanied an explorer for many hundred miles into the great unmapped region beyond Hudson Bay at least he claimed to have done so.
They busied themselves around the boats for a short time, more to make it appear that they had really sought the spot with the intention of fixing things cozily for the night than because there was need of their labor; and during the minutes that elapsed Cuthbert managed to ask numerous questions about Stackpole, for when he learned from Owen that in times past this fellow and the halfbreed Dubois, from whom he had secured the unreliable chart, had been boon companions, a disturbing thought was born in his mind that possibly there might have been more of design than accident in the coming of the timber-cruiser on this night.
He is supposed to be a timber-cruiser and log-sealer, but I reckon he doesn't work very hard at his trade. Down in the lower wards of New York they'd call him a boss heeler, maybe. But you say 'hold-up'; you don't mean to tell me that Jack Barto robbed you, son!"
He was acting as what is called a "timber-cruiser," roaming the remoter and less-known regions of the wilderness to locate the best growths of spruce and pine for the winter's lumbering operations, and for the present his keen faculties were set on the noting of tree growths, and water-courses, and the lay of the land for the getting out of a winter's cutting.
"I think you'd have to go three or four miles in any direction before you struck a living soul; and then the chances are it'd only be some wandering timber-cruiser, taking a look at the fine lumber prospects, with a hazy idea that he might be able to strike a bargain with the party who owns all this land up here."
Owen led the way in his bullboat. He was more than usually silent after his talk over the trap and the poor little mink's foot up the creek, and Cuthbert wondered what it might be that affected him could the coming of Stackpole have had anything to do with it the idea was not impossible, for he had evidently known the gaunt timber-cruiser before, and if the story of the boy's sad past were known the gigantic woodsman might occupy a place in it.
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