CHAPTER XVI

DISASTER AT THE MILL

Night closed in leaden-hued. The threat of storm had early brought the day to a close, so that the sunset was lost in the ma.s.sing clouds banking on the western horizon.

Summer was well advanced, and already the luxurious foliage of the valley was affected by the blistering heat. The emerald of the trees and the gra.s.s had gained a maturer hue, and only the darker pines resisted the searching sunlight. The valley was full ripe, and kindly nature was about to temper her efforts and permit a breathing s.p.a.ce.

The weather-wise understood this.

Dave was standing at his office door watching the approach of the electric storm, preparing to launch its thunders upon the valley. Its progress afforded him no sort of satisfaction. Everybody but himself wanted rain. It had already done him too much harm.

He was thinking of the letter he had just received from Bob Mason up in the hills. Its contents were so satisfactory, and this coming rain looked like undoing the good his staunch friends in the mountain camps had so laboriously achieved.

While Mason reported that the fever still had the upper hand, its course had been checked; the epidemic had been grappled with and held within bounds. That was sufficiently satisfactory, seeing Chepstow had only been up there ten days. Then, too, Mason had had cause to congratulate himself on another matter. A number of recruits for his work had filtered through to his camps from Heaven and themselves alone knew where. This was quite good. These men were not the best of lumbermen, but under the "camp boss" they would help to keep the work progressing, which, in the circ.u.mstances, was all that could be asked.

A few minutes later Dave departed into the mills. Since the mill up the river had been converted and set to work, and Simon Odd had been given temporary charge of it, he shared with Dawson the work of overseeing.

As he mounted to the princ.i.p.al milling floor the great syren shrieked out its summons to the night shift, and sent the call echoing and reechoing down the valley. There was no cessation of work. The "relief"

stood ready, and the work was pa.s.sed on from hand to hand.

Dave saw his foreman standing close by No. 1, and he recognized the relief as Mansell. Dawson was watching the man closely, and judging by the frown on his face, it was plain that something was amiss. He moved over to him and beckoned him into the office.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, as soon as the door was closed.

Dawson was never the man to choose his words when he had a grievance.

That was one of the reasons his employer liked him. He was so rough, and so straightforward. He had a grievance now.

"I ain't no sort o' use for these schoolhouse ways," he said, with the added force of an oath.

Dave waited for his next attempt.

"That skunk Mansell. He's got back to-night. He ain't been on the time-sheet for nigh to a week."

"You didn't tell me? Still, he's back."

Dave smiled into the other's angry face, and his manner promptly drew an explosion from the hot-headed foreman.

"Yes, he's back. But he wouldn't be if I was boss. That's the sort o'

Sunday-school racket I ain't no use for. He's back, because you say he's to work right along. Sort of to help him. Yes, he's back. He's been fightin'-drunk fer six nights, and I'd hate to say he's dead sober now."

"Yet you signed him on. Why?"

"Oh, as to that, he's sober, I guess. But the drink's in him. I tell you, boss, he's rotten--plumb rotten--when the drink's in him. I know him. Say----"

But Dave had had enough.

"You say he's sober--well, let it go at that. The man can do his work.

That's the important thing to us. Just now we can't bother with his morals. Still, you'd best keep an eye on him."

He turned to his books, and Dawson busied himself with the checkers'

sheets. For some time both men worked without exchanging a word, and the only interruption was the regular coming of the tally boys, who brought the check slips of the lumber measurements.

Through the thin part.i.tions the roar of machinery was incessant, and at frequent intervals the hoa.r.s.e shouts of the "checkers" reached them.

But this disturbed them not at all. It was what they were used to, what they liked to hear, for it told of the work going forward without hitch of any sort.

At last the master of the mills looked up from a ma.s.s of figures. He had been making careful calculations.

"We're short, Dawson," he said briefly.

"Short by half a million feet," the foreman returned, without even looking round.

"How's Odd doing up the river?"

"Good. The machinery's newer, I guess."

"Yes. But we can't help that. We've no time for installing new machinery here. Besides, I can't spare the capital."

Dawson looked round.

"'Tain't that," he said. "We're short of the right stuff in the boom.

Lestways, we was yesterday. A hundred and fifty logs. We're doing better to-day. Though not good enough. It's that dogone fever, I guess."

"What's in the reserve?"

"Fifteen hundred logs now. I've drew on them mighty heavy. We've used up that number twice over a'ready. I'm scairt to draw further. You see, it's a heap better turning out short than using up that. If we're short on the cut only us knows it. If we finish up our reserve, and have to shut down some o' the saws, other folks'll know it, and we ain't lookin' for that trouble."

Dave closed his book with a slam. All his recent satisfaction was gone in the discovery of the shortage. He had not suspected it.

"I must send up to Mason. It's--it's h.e.l.l!"

"It's wuss!"

Dave swung round on his loyal a.s.sistant.

"Use every log in the reserve. Every one, mind. We've got to gamble. If Mason keeps us short we're done anyway. Maybe the fever will let up, and things'll work out all right."

Dave flung his book aside and stood up. His heavy face was more deeply lined than it had been at the beginning of summer. He looked to be nearer fifty than thirty. The tremendous work and anxiety were telling.

"Get out to the shoots," he went on, in a sharp tone of command he rarely used. "I'll see to the tally. Keep 'em right at it. Squeeze the saws, and get the last foot out of 'em. Use the reserve till it's done.

We're up against it."

Dawson understood. He gave his chief one keen glance, nodded and departed. He knew, no one better, the tremendous burden on the man's gigantic shoulders.

Dave watched him go. Then he turned back to the desk. He was not the man to weaken at the vagaries of ill fortune. Such difficulties as at the moment confronted him only stiffened his determination. He would not take a beating. He was ready to battle to the death. He quietly, yet earnestly, cursed the fever to himself, and opened and reread Mason's letter. One paragraph held his attention, and he read it twice over.