The Prey of the Strongest

I

"Klahya, tilikum."

As Pitt River Pete spoke he entered the humming Fraser Mill by the big side door chute down which all the heavier sawed lumber slid on its way to the yard. He had climbed up the slope of the chute and for some moments had stayed outside, though he looked in, for the sun was burning bright on white sawed lumber and the shining river, so that the comparative gloom of the Mill made him pause. But now he entered, and seeing Skookum Charlie helping the Wedger-off, he spoke, and Skookum, who could not hear in the uproar, knew that he said "Klahya."

The Mill stretched either way, and each end was open to the East and the West. It was old and grimed and covered with the fine meal of sawdust. Great webs hung up aloft in the dim roof. In front of Pete was the Pony Saw which took the lumber from the great Saws and made it into boards and scantling, beams and squared lumber. To Pete's right were the Great Saws, the father and mother of the Mill, double, edge to edge, mighty in their curved inset teeth, wide in gauge and strong whatever came to them. As they sang and screamed in chorus, singing always together, the other Saws chimed in: the Pony Saw sang and the Great Trimmer squealed and the Chinee Trimmer whined. Every Saw had its note, its natural song, just as naturally as a bird has: each could be told by the skilled hearer. Pete listened as he stepped inside and put his back against the studs of the wall-plates, out of the way of the hive of man, he only being a drone that hour. And the Big Hoes, Father and Mother of the Mill, droned in the cut of logs and said (or sang) that what they cut was Douglas Fir, and that it was tough. But the Pony Saw said that the last big log had been Spruce. The smell of spruce said "spruce" just as the Saw sang it. And the Trimmers screamed opposing notes, for they cut across the grain. Beneath the floor where the chorus of the Saws worked was the clatter of the lath-mill and the insistent squeal of the Shingle Saw, with its recurrent shriek of pride, "I cut a shingle, phit, I cut a shingle, phit!"

The whole Mill was a tuned instrument, a huge sounding board. There was no discord, for any discord played its part: it was one organic harmony, pleasing, fatiguing, satisfying; any dropped note was missed: if the Lath Mill stayed in silence, something was wanting, when the Shingler said nothing, the last fine addition to the music fell away. And yet the one harmony of the Mill was a background for the soloes of the Saws, for the great diapason of the Hoes, for the swifter speech of the Pony, for the sharp cross note of the Trimmers. The saws sang according to the log, to its nature, to its growth: either for the butt or the cleaner wood. In a long log the saws intoned a recitative: a solemn service. And beneath them all was the mingled song of the belts, which drove the saws, hidden in darkness, and between floors. Against the song of the Mill the voice of man prevailed nothing.

When any man desired to speak to another he went close to him and shouted. They had a silent speech for measurements in feet; the hand, the fingers, the rubbed thumb and finger, the clenched hand with thumb up, with thumb down, called numbers for the length of boards, of scantling, what not.

"Eleven feet!" said the rubbing thumb and forefinger.

If any spoke it was about the business of the Mill.

"Fine cedar this," said Mac to Jack, "fine cedar-special order-for--" a lost word.

But for the most part no one spoke but the saws. Men whistled with pursed lips and whistled dumbly: they sang too, but the songs were swallowed in the song of the Saws. They began at six and ran till noon unless a breakdown happened and some belt gave way. But none had given this day and it was ten o'clock. The men were warm and willing with work, their muscles worked warm and easy. It was grand to handle the lever and to beat in the iron dogs: to use the maul upon the wedges as the Saws squealed. They worked easy in their minds. They looked up and smiled unenvious of idle Pitt River Pete. They knew work was good, their breath felt clean: their hearts beat to the rhythm of the Mill.

As mills go it was a small one. It could not compete with the giants of the Inlet and the Sound who served Australia, which grows no good working wood, or South America. It sent no lumber to Brisbane, no boards to Callao or Valparaiso. It served the town of New Westminster and the neighbouring ranches: the little growth of townships on the River up to Hope and Yale. Sometimes it sent a cargo to Victoria or 'Squimault. A schooner even now lay alongside the wharf, piled high with new sawed stuff, that the saws had eaten as logs and spewed as lumber.

As logs! Aye, in the pool below, in the Boom, which is a chained log corral for swimming logs, a hundred great logs swam. Paul (from nowhere, but a tall thin man) was the keeper and their herder. He chose them for the slaughter, and went out upon them as they wallowed, and with a long pike stood upon the one to be sacrificed and drove it to the spot whence it should climb to the altar: a long slope with an endless cable working above and below it. He made it fast with heavy dogs, with chains may be, and then spoke to one above who clapped the Friction on the Bull-Wheel and hove the log out of the water, as if it were a whale for flensing. It went up into the Mill and was rolled upon the skids, and waited. It trembled and the Mill trembled.

"Now, now, that log, boys. Hook in, drive her, roll her, heave and she's on! Drive in the dogs and she goes!"

Oh, but it was a good sight and the roar was filling. Pete's eyes sparkled: he loved it: loved the sound and the song and itched to be again on the log with the maul. Those who speak of sport-why, let them fell a giant, drive it, boom it, drag it and cut it up! To brittle a monarch of the forest and disembowel it of its boards: its scantlings: its squared lumber: posts, fences, shingles, laths, pickets, Oho! Pete knew how great it was.

"Oh, klahya, tilikum, my friend the log."

He spoke not now to Skookum, but strong Charlie, and lazy Charlie, understood him. At one hour of the day even the lazy surrendered to the charm of the song of the work and did their damnedest. So Skookum understood that his old friend (both being Sitcum Siwashes, or half breeds) loved the Mill and the work at that hour.

White, the chief Sawyer, the Red Beard, was at his lever and set the carriage for a ten inch Cant when the slabs were off and hurtling to the lath mill. Ginger White no one loved, least of all his Wedger-Off, Simmons (a man, like silent Paul of the Boom, from nowhere), for he too was gingery, with a gleam of the sun in his beard and a spice of the devil in his temper. He was the fierce red type, while White was red but lymphatic, and also a little fat under the jowl and a liar by nature, furtive, not very brave but skilled in Saws. Simmons took a wedge and his maul and waited for the log to come to him. The carriage moved: the saws bit: the sawdust squirted and spurted in a curve with strips of wood which were not sawdust, for they use big gauges in the soft wood of the West and would stare at a sixteenth gauge, to say nothing of less. Now Simmons leapt upon the log and drove in the wedge to keep the closing cut open for the saws. The lengthening cut gave opening for another and another. Simmons and Skookum played swiftly, interchanging the loosened wedge and setting it to loosen the last driven in. The Wedgers-Off on the six-foot log were like birds of prey upon a beast.

"Oh, give it her," yelled Skookum. It was a way of his to yell. But Ginger drove her fast, hoping to hear the saws nip a little and alter their note so that he could complain. Simmons knew it, Skookum knew it. But they played quickly and sure. They leapt before the end of the cut and helped to guide the falling cant upon the skids. Chinamen helped them. The Cant thundered on the skids and was thrust sideways over to the Pony Saw.

"Kloshe kahkwa," said Pete. "That's good!"

And as he sent the carriage backward for another cut, Ginger White looked up and saw Pete standing with his back to the wall. Ginger's dull eye brightened, and he regarded Simmons with increased disfavour. Pete he knew was a good Wedger-Off, a quick, keen man very good for a Siwash, as good as any man in the Mill at such work. He had seen Pete work at the Inlet. Oh, he was good, "hyas kloshe," said White, but as for Simmons, damn! He was red-headed, and Ginger hated a red man for some deep reason.

It was a busy world, but even in the rhythm of the work hatred gleamed and strange passions worked as darkly as the belts, deep in the floor, that drove the saws. Quin, the manager (and part owner), came in at the door by the big Saws, and he saw Pete standing by the open chute. He smiled to himself.

"Back again, and asking for work. Where's his wife, pretty Jenny?"

She was pretty, toketie klootchman, a pretty woman: not a half breed: perhaps, if one knew, less than a quarter breed, tenas Sitcum Siwash, and the blood showed in the soft cheeks. She was bright and had real colour, tender contours, everything but beautiful hands and feet, and they not so bad. As for her face, and her smile (which was something to see), why, said Quin, as he licked his lips, there wasn't a white woman around that was a patch on her. Jenny had smiled on him. But Pete kept his eye on her and so far as it seemed she was true to him. But Quin--

In the busy world as it was Quin's mind ran on Jenny.

"Yes, Sir," he used to say, "we're small but all there. We run for all we're worth, every cent of it, every pound of beef. If you want to see bigger, try the...