Two Young Lumbermen by Edward Stratemeyer

The following week found Dale and Owen fully settled at the camp of the Wilbur-Balasco Lumber Company. Mr. Balasco had interviewed them for a few minutes on the morning after their arrival, and had then placed them under the directions of a foreman named Larson, a Swede, who could speak fairly good English. They had gone back to the railroad station for their trunks and valises, and were housed in a cabin at what was called Yard 4, located at the head of the creek. The yards above No. 4 were without a waterway, and the timber had to be hauled down by engines and by horses, although a flume was being built, from a hill half a mile further on. When this was finished, a mountain stream was to be turned into it, which would afford a waterway for all the timber in that section, and also increase the flow in the creek running into the Columbia.

Yard 4 was on a hillside, thickly overgrown with brush, and full of loose stones, so the gang had to work at first with great care, for rolling stones are conducive to twisted ankles and broken limbs. In Larson's gang were sixteen foreigners, and the balance were Oregonians, all muscular fellows, as tough as pine knots.

It must be confessed that both Dale and Owen found the work cut out for them very hard. Larson was a driver, and never gave his men any rest if he could help it.

"Mr. B'asco expect de work and we must do it," said the foreman. "Nobody lak to see de work fall behind. Work up dare, den, an' show what you can a-do. " And the men did work up, although not without growling.

At first Dale and Owen were placed among the barkers and sawyers, but as soon as Larson heard that they had chopped down trees in Maine, he let them try their skill on some of the smaller trees to be cut. They went to work with all the skill they could command, doing exactly as they had seen the other fellers do, and when the first tree came down the foreman nodded approvingly.

"Dat's putty goot," he said. "Not so queek as I like, but maybe it goes queeker by an' by, hey?"

"It will go quicker after we are used to it," answered Owen.

He was sorry that they had not been placed in the yard where Andy Westmore and Bruce Howard were located. But there was no choice in the matter, and he and Dale accepted what was offered to them without hesitation.

"If we don't, Mr. Wilbur may think we're a couple of cranks," said Dale. "As he was kind enough to pay our car-fare out here, we ought to do all we can to please him."

"I shan't say a word -- at least not this season," answered Owen.

One day was very much like another, until one afternoon Ulmer Balasco paid a visit to the yard. He held a short, earnest talk with Larson, and then ordered that about half of the timber cut should be taken up to where the flume was rapidly approaching completion.

"But you said dat dat timber was needed on dare pig railroad contract," Owen heard Larson say.

"Never mind, Larson; do as I've ordered," answered Ulmer Balasco sharply. "I'll take care of the contract. And there is no use of your working the men to death. If you don't take care you'll have them either quitting altogether, or striking for higher wages."

After that the work went on more slowly, and when a man of the gang stopped to smoke out a pipeful of tobacco the foreman said little or nothing. The lumber that had been ordered for the flume went up day after day, and more followed, so that next to nothing was floated down the creek, to help fill the railroad contract mentioned.

"I must say I can't understand what Mr. Balasco is driving at," said Andy Westmore, when Dale and Owen came down to see him and Bruce Howard, on the following Sunday. "Two months ago it was announced that the company had taken a big contract from the P. C. & W. Railroad, and that the work was to be shoved through without the slightest delay. Everything went swimmingly until about two weeks ago. Then those two yards were closed up, and now some of the lumber has been sent up to the flume, instead of down to the Columbia. They'll never fill that contract on time at this rate."

"Mr. Balasco ought to know what he's doing," said Owen. "Perhaps the railroad is behind in payments."

"I have an idea he wants to get the flume done," put in Bruce Howard. "As soon as that is finished he can send down all the lumber he pleases, from Cat Hill."

"He can get all the lumber he wants right here," went on Andy Westmore. "If he waits for the flume he'll be behind with his contract just as sure as you are standing there."

A part of the Sunday afternoon was spent by Dale and Owen in penning a long letter to Jefferson Wilbur, telling that gentleman of their arrival at the camp, and mentioning what they were doing. Dale also got out the mining papers that had belonged to his father, and made a copy of the documents, and this copy was placed in the letter, which was later on put in a sack along with many others for departure on the mail train when it should stop at Tunley.

So far the young lumbermen had had but little to do with the majority of the men around them, and nothing at all with those employed at the yards beyond Number 4. They had paid one visit to the flume that was building, and inspected with much interest the big trestle which was to carry the timbered waterway from the side of one hill to the bottom of the next.