The Rules of the Game Part 5

There was no general conversation. Talk confined itself strictly to shop. Bob, his imagination already stirred by the incidents of his stroll, listened eagerly. Fox was getting in touch with the whole situation.

"The main drive is down," Tally told him, "but the Cedar Branch hasn't got to the river yet. What in blazes did you want to buy that little strip this late in the day for?"

"Had to take it--on a deal," said Fox briefly. "Why? Is it hard driving?

I've never been up there. Welton saw to all that."

"It's h.e.l.l. The pine's way up at the headwaters. You have to drive her the whole length of the stream, through a mixed hardwood and farm country. Lots of partridges and mossbacks, but no improvements. Not a dam the whole length of her. Case of hit the freshet water or get hung."

"Well, we've done that kind of a job before."

"Yes, _before_!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half-crew of good, old-fas.h.i.+oned white-water birlers, I'd rest easy. But we don't have no crews like we used to. The old bully boys have all moved out west--or died."

"Getting old--like us," bantered Fox. "Why haven't you died off too, Jim?"

"I'm never going to die," stated the old man, "I'm going to live to turn into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a fact. There's plenty left can ride a log all right, but they're a tough lot. It's too close here to Marion."

"That _is_ too bad," condoled Fox, "especially as I remember so well what a soft-spoken, lamb-like little tin angel you used to be, Jim."

Fox, who had quite dropped his old office self, winked at Bob. The latter felt encouraged to say:

"I had a course in college on archaeology. Don't remember much about it, but one thing. When they managed to decipher the oldest known piece of hieroglyphics on an a.s.syrian brick, what do you suppose it turned out to be?"

"Give it up, Brudder Bones," said Tally, dryly, "what was it?"

Bob flushed at the old riverman's tone, but went on.

"It was a letter from a man to his son away at school. In it he lamented the good old times when he was young, and gave it as his opinion that the world was going to the dogs."

Tally grinned slowly; and the others burst into a shout of laughter.

"All right, bub," said the riverman good-humouredly. "But that doesn't get me a new foreman." He turned to Fox. "Smith broke his leg; and I can't find a man to take charge. I can't go. The main drive's got to be sorted."

"There ought to be plenty of good men," said Fox.

"There are, but they're at work."

"d.i.c.ky Darrell is over at Marion," spoke up one of the scalers.

"Roaring d.i.c.k," said Tally sarcastically, "--but there's no denying he's a good man in the woods. But if he's at Marion, he's drunk; and if he's drunk, you can't do nothing with him."

"I heard it three days ago," said the scaler.

Tally ruminated. "Well," he concluded, "maybe he's about over with his bust. I'll run over this afternoon and see what I can do with him. If Tom Welton would only tear himself apart from California, we'd get on all right."

A sc.r.a.ping back of benches and a tramp of feet announced the nearly simultaneous finis.h.i.+ng of feeding at the men's tables. At the boss's table everyone seized an unabashed toothpick. Collins addressed Bob.

"Mr. Fox and I have so much to go over this afternoon," said he, "that I don't believe I'll have time to show you. Just look around a little."

On the porch outside Bob paused. After a moment he became aware of a figure at his elbow. He turned to see old Jim Tally bent over to light his pipe behind the mahogany of his curved hand.

"Want to take in Marion, bub?" he enquired.

"Sure!" cried Bob heartily, surprised at this mark of favour.

"Come on then," said the old riverman, "the lightning express is gettin'

anxious for us."

VII

They tramped to the station and boarded the single pa.s.senger car of the accommodation. There they selected a forward seat and waited patiently for the freight-handling to finish and for the leisurely puffing little engine to move on. An hour later they descended at Marion. The journey had been made in an almost absolute silence. Tally stared straight ahead, and sucked at his little pipe. To him, apparently, the journey was merely something to be endured; and he relapsed into that patient absent-mindedness developed among those who have to wait on forces that will not be hurried. Bob's remarks he answered in monosyllables. When the train pulled into the station, Tally immediately arose, as though released by a spring.

Bob's impressions of Marion were of great mills and sawdust-burners along a wide river; of broad, sawdust-covered streets; of a single block of good, brick stores on a main thoroughfare which almost immediately petered out into the vilest and most ramshackle frame "joints"; of wide side streets flanked by small, painted houses in yards, some very neat indeed. Tally walked rapidly by the respectable business blocks, but pushed into the first of the unkempt frame saloons beyond. Bob followed close at his heels. He found himself in a cheap bar-room, its paint and varnish scarred and marred, its floor sawdust-covered, its centre occupied by a huge stove, its walls decorated by several pictures of the nude.

Four men were playing cards at an old round table, hacked and bruised and blackened by time. One of them was the barkeeper, a burly individual with black hair plastered in a "lick" across his forehead. He pushed back his chair and ducked behind the bar, whence he greeted the newcomers. Tally proffered a question. The barkeeper relaxed from his professional att.i.tude, and leaned both elbows on the bar. The two conversed for a moment; then Tally nodded briefly and went out. Bob followed.

This performance was repeated down the length of the street. The stage-settings varied little; same oblong, painted rooms; same varnished bars down one side; same mirrors and bottles behind them; same sawdust-strewn floors; same pictures on the walls; same obscure, back rooms; same sleepy card games by the same burly but sodden type of men.

This was the off season. Profits were now as slight as later they would be heavy. Tim talked with the barkeepers low-voiced, nodded and went out. Only when he had systematically worked both sides of the street did he say anything to his companion.

"He's in town," said Tally; "but they don't know where."

"Whither away?" asked Bob.

"Across the river."

They walked together down a side street to a long wooden bridge. This rested on wooden piers shaped upstream like the prow of a ram in order to withstand the battering of the logs. It was a very long bridge.

Beneath it the swift current of the river slipped smoothly. The breadth of the stream was divided into many channels and pockets by means of brown poles. Some of these were partially filled with logs. A clear channel had been preserved up the middle. Men armed with long pike-poles were moving here and there over the booms and the logs themselves, pus.h.i.+ng, pulling, shoving a big log into this pocket, another into that, gradually segregating the different brands belonging to the different owners of the mills below. From the quite considerable height of the bridge all this lay spread out mapwise up and down the perspective of the stream. The smooth, oily current of the river, leaden-hued and cold in the light of the early spring, hurried by on its way to the lake, swiftly, yet without the turmoil and fuss of lesser power. Downstream, as far as Bob could see, were the huge mills' with their flanking lumber yards, the masts of their lading s.h.i.+ps, their black sawdust-burners, and above all the pure-white, triumphant banners of steam that shot straight up against the gray of the sky.

Tally followed the direction of his gaze.

"Modern work," he commented. "Band saws. No circulars there. Two hundred thousand a day"; with which cryptic utterance he resumed his walk.

The opposite side of the river proved to be a smaller edition of the other. Into the first saloon Tally pushed.

It resembled the others, except that no card game was in progress. The barkeeper, his feet elevated, read a pink paper behind the bar. A figure slept at the round table, its head in its arms. Tally walked over to shake this man by the shoulder.

In a moment the sleeper raised his head. Bob saw a little, middle-aged man, not over five feet six in height, slenderly built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders. His head was an almost exact inverted pyramid, the base formed by a mop of red-brown hair, and the apex represented by a very pointed chin. Two level, oblong patches of hair made eyebrows. His face was white and nervous. A strong, hooked nose separated a pair of red-brown eyes, small and twinkling, like a chipmunk's. Just now they were bloodshot and vague.

"Hullo, d.i.c.ky Darrell," said Tally.

The man struggled to his feet, knocking over the chair, and laid both hands effusively on Tally's shoulders.

"Jim!" he cried thickly. "Good ole Jim! Glad to see you! Hav' drink!"

Tally nodded, and, to Bob's surprise, took his place at the bar.