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CHAPTER XIII
A Co-operative Proposition

It was rather later than they had anticipated when Hank and Joe arrived at Sam Fennick's shack on the following day; for again a thaw had set in – not the "silver thaw" so much prized in Canada, which they had previously experienced, and which, by freezing the upper layer of snow and, as it were, laying a sound crust upon it, had enabled them to make good progress, but a thaw unaccompanied by change, or, to be exact, not followed by a succeeding frost. They finished their journey, therefore, through a snowy slush, sinking often above their knees, while their moccasins and their feet were wringing wet and very cold.

Shouts greeted them.

"Why, if it ain't Joe!" came from Sam heartily, in his well-known bellowing tones, while the ineradicable cockney accent was obviously there; in fact, it was an accent of which Sam was proud. It was something never likely to leave him however long he remained in Canada, and however much he interlarded his conversation with Americanisms. "Missus, it's Joe!" he shouted, turning his head over his shoulder. Then he dashed forward, seized our hero's hand, and squeezed it till the latter almost winced.

"Howdy?" he exclaimed, swinging on Hank. "Introduce us."

"Hank," said Joe shortly, "hunter and trapper, a friend of mine. Hank, this is Sam Fennick; but – "

"In course I knows Sam," cried Hank, stretching out his wiry little paw, but one, nevertheless, which could give a grip that would make a strong man squirm. After all, outside the polite society of London and other large cities, where very vigorous handshaking is not looked on with favour, men often enough, the rough men of the plain, the prairie, the backwoods farm, and of the forest, exchange greetings with an earnestness there is no denying. Such men do not simper and dangle nerveless fingers before a stranger. They stand facing squarely, looking closely into the other's eyes, and when their hands meet, and their fingers grip the other's, the firmness of the grip, its vigour, its unflinching support of the return pressure somehow conveys something of the character of one man to the other. Hank had treated Joe in that way. To a man such as Hurley, whom he did not like, whom he suspected to be a craven, Hank merely waved or nodded; for he had his own views of what was proper, and they were far more exact and far more straightforward than one would have imagined.

"What! You, Hank – me old pal!" shouted Sam, delighted beyond measure, and almost hugging the little hunter. "You along o' Joe? How's that? He been doing something fer you, same as he did fer us?"

Hank asked an abrupt question. "What?"

"Ain't he never let on about the fire aboard ship, the rumpus there was, and how he led the volunteers?"

"Nary a word. Peter – Peter Strike, that is – did tell me a tale, but he warn't too sure of it. The young cuss is that silent when it comes to hisself. But he's been doing well. Sam, let's get these wet things off us, and something hot inside, and then we'll gas. Gee! Ef that ain't Mrs. Fennick! Howdy, maam? Here's Joe."

The good woman almost embraced our hero, for she felt like a mother to him.

"Come right in and let us hear all about you and your doings," she cried. "And Hank Mitchell too! I'm that glad to see you both, and Sam has been waitin' these many days for you to arrive. He's got a scheme for the winter."

The grinning master of the shack accompanied the visitors into the interior of the shack, and there stood, first on one leg and then on the other, while Joe and Hank looked keenly about them. It was to be expected that a man of Sam's energy, a Canadian settler who liked things to be right, should have erected a dwelling which should be fitting for his wife. Besides, there was reason for even greater magnificence.

"Guess you've been hard at work," said Hank, looking about him with twinkling eyes that nothing escaped. "This here shack's meant to last."

"It's that and more," cried Mrs. Fennick, pride in her tones. "Sam has built for a purpose. This shack's too big for what we want; he planned to have an office."

"Eh?" asked Hank, turning on the grinning owner, who had flushed to the roots of his hair for all the world as if he were a schoolboy. "What's this?"

"Part of the scheme, lad," came the answer. "Jest you two get seated and pull off those wet moccasins; then, when you've got dry socks to your feet and has had a bite, I'll get to at it. It's a fine yarn; I've dreamed of it this past five years."

No amount of persuasion would drag from Sam what his scheme was till Joe and Hank had eaten, and the latter had lit up a pipe.

"You kin fire in at it, Sam," said Hank at length, in the crisp little manner which was so distinctly his own. "I kinder gathered from this here Joe that when you came along up here prospecting it warn't with the idea of the ordinary farm. Maam, it's plain to see as my old friend has nigh worked his fingers to the bone."

Once more the little hunter's eyes went round the large parlour in which he and the others were seated, while Mrs. Fennick and her husband followed his glances with frank pride staring from their own eyes. Nor could Joe help but admire all that he saw; for he and Sam had been parted but a matter of a few months, and in the course of that time the latter had pitched upon a suitable holding for his farm, and had cut the timber for his shack, besides erecting the house. As to the latter, it was far bigger than the ordinary shack erected by the settler. There was a parlour, a kitchen, and three bedrooms, while attached at one side was a large office.

"Where we'll have the telephone afore you kin look round," declared Sam. "It's jest like this. Me and a mate or two agreed to go along together into New Ontario and pitch upon a spot that was likely to open up. Wall, we took the line the branch railway was following, though there's not one save those in the know behind the scenes, who kin say exactly where it'll run. Still, me and the others prospected a heap till we came along here. What with the difficulties of rocks to the south, and big, straggling elevations, it was clear as the rails must follow the valley, and there warn't more'n one for 'em to take. So we prospected along it till we came here. You jist come outside the door and you'll see what I'm after."

He led the way to the door of the shack and pointed to the north across a narrow stretch of country bounded on either hand by elevated land, and seamed along a straggling line running a little to one side of its centre by a thin strip of blue which, here and there, was entirely covered with snow. As for the landscape itself, it was difficult to tell its aspect exactly, in spite of the thaw, for snow lay deeply in most parts.

"Wall?" asked Hank curtly, looking about him and taking in every feature. "It's the top end of the valley, I kin see that. Rails running north kin easily pass out, seeing that the two ridges on either side don't run together. But they can't cut off to right or left. Ef the rails comes along this way, why, in course they passes right through this location."

"Along by the river," said Sam quickly. "Hank, it's an easy rise all the way. The river ain't got no current to speak of, which tells the tale easily. As to the rails coming along into the valley down south, why, that is almost certain, as sure as one can take it. Anyway, me and my mates agreed that it was more than likely, and so we arranged to take up holdings here. There's four of us already, Claude and Jim and Joe makes seven, and come spring-time there's nigh twenty more married men to join us."

"Wall?" asked Hank, not as yet clear as to what was Sam's meaning. "Where's the difference between this and other settlements? You takes up land, and the rails come along. Good! Up goes the value of the land, as it aer sartin to do. You get a reward for foresight; after that, where's the difference?"

Sam had evidently sought for the question, for he rubbed his hands together eagerly and gripped Hank's sleeve.

"Jest here," he declared with enthusiasm. "Instead of some twenty of us starting to work our sections separately, and going mighty slow in consequence, we're forming a corporation. Each man who takes land will pool money with the corporation. With that money we buy implements, horses, cattle, everything that's needed. We divide our numbers into parties, and come the spring one of 'em sets to work to build the shacks, another does the ploughing, while a third'll get to at the irrigation channels."

"Ah!" gasped Hank. "This aer new."

"Sam worked the scheme out all alone," declared Mrs. Fennick, with energy, causing her lord and master to blush again.

"It sounds just splendid," cried Hank. "Wall? What more? I kin see that there's an advantage in working ground on the corporation system. If you've got the timber cut already, it stands to reason that ten men working on a shack can put it up more'n ten times quicker than one man all alone. If there's twenty shacks wanted, ten men can put 'em up heaps faster than twenty fellers working on their own. And irrigation too! That sounds fine; it's doing well elsewhere."

Hank spoke but the truth there. A far-seeing Dominion Government and an all-powerful railway company have already seamed portions of Canada with canals and ditches with which water is borne to lands hitherto useless. Their forethought has converted, and is fast converting, barren soil into country which in parts already bears smiling crops and happy homesteads. As for the corporate system, if the Dominion Government has not attempted that – and one must admit that it is a question more for individual settlers – it has at least other worthy schemes. A would-be settler can now sail for the Dominion, to find there a quarter section prepared for his coming, with the shack built, the well dug, and some forty acres broken and seeded. For this he pays a reasonably small sum down, and the rest by small instalments. Think of the huge advantage of such a system. In place of finding naked soil, and having first to build a shelter and then break the land, a settler finds a home in readiness and crops already sprouting. Then consider Sam Fennick's proposition.

"It aer bound to go with a bang," declared Hank, pushing his skin cap to the back of his head and scratching his forehead. "It aer jest tremendous."

"It'll work, I think," agreed Sam, with the natural modesty of the inventor of such a daring scheme. "Anyway, we've got the party together, and there'll be money in abundance. Each man will own his own taking, and ef others come along and settle nigh us, why, we're prepared to hire ourselves out ef there's a call and we've the time. As for implements, me and a few of them has talked it over, and come the spring there'll be two steam agricultural motors up here, in which we kin burn wood. They'll each do ploughing at three to four acres a day, and will draw the reapers and binders when it comes to harvesting. There won't be no need to wait for a threshing gang, 'cos the tractors will drive the machine we shall buy. They kin do wood sawing too, and a hundred other things, besides hauling the stuff to market."

"Ah!" gasped Hank, for this was a proposition which rather took his breath away by its novelty and its possibilities. "But – "

"Yes?" asked Sam, bracing himself, as if to face any awkward questions the little hunter might fire off at him.

"There's the winter," said Hank. "Your corporation comes to an end when the snow comes; you ain't thought of that."

But Sam had; he wagged a knowing finger, while Mrs. Fennick giggled. Indeed, it must be admitted that this cockney settler, who had come from London and done so well in the Dominion, had proved himself more than astute. Perhaps he had thought the whole matter out during some past winter in Canada. In any case, he had been wonderfully close where his scheme was concerned, for never once had he more than hinted at it to Joe. However, the question of work in the winter had not escaped him.

"You listen here," he said, shaking Hank as if he were a dog. "Come wintertime east of the rockies things mostly closes down in Canada; even in the towns there ain't too much work. There's men wandering to and fro searching for jobs, whereas, most times and in most places, when there's spring and summer, there's more jobs than men."

"Guess that aer so," agreed Hank, sucking hard at his pipe.

"But there's work in Canada that starts in the fall, and only then – eh?"

"Lumberin'," suggested Hank.

"Lumbering it aer," cried Sam, drawling the words. "Up there beyond the break through which the railway'll pass, ef we've any luck, there's land that's heavily timbered. Wall, it's part of the scheme. You kin get a timber concession from Government by paying so much on the logs you cut, and me and my mates has taken up a tidy piece of timber country. There's a lake twenty miles and more north into which we can slide the logs, and there's another jest at the head of the valley. Way south there's a quickish fall, with water in plenty, and ef all goes well, and we kin make enough dollars, why, we'll start a mill there and saw our timber. The rails'll be close by then, and will take 'em on to market."

"My," cried Hank, "you've been moving!"

"We're only beginning," said Sam. "But we starts out for a lumber camp soon as the frost comes, and there we'll work till springtime. You axed what we was going to do in the winter. There's the answer."

It must be confessed that Sam Fennick's scheme was ambitious to the last degree. But then, if one analyses it, one can see the possibilities that Hank saw, for co-operative working is often enough wonderfully successful where the single individual fails. Again, in a country where labour is scarce, and profits often lessened because of the lack of labour at critical periods; where, in fact, a man who may have broken and sown his land with the greatest industry may see his crops rot in spite of his energy, simply and solely because of the lack of help to harvest them; there, in a case such as that, the co-operation of his fellows would be all in all to him. Indeed, with pooled labour, and a certain sum pooled by all the settlers with which to buy implements, it stands to reason that work could be done more cheaply, more expeditiously, and always at the proper season.

"It aer a grand proposition," declared Hank, when he had thoroughly considered the matter. "I kin see a big saving in more than one way, and one of 'em's this. Suppose there's twenty settlers in the combine. Wall, now, with ten ploughs and ten harrows and seeders you've tools to break the land. Supposing there warn't a combine; each man has his own tools. They ain't all in use together, so some of 'em's lying idle. That's gain number one, and don't you try to contradict me. And so you're goin' lumberin'?"

"We are that," assented Sam; "and seems to me you and Joe had better come along with us. You could put in a month or more, and then go along on prospecting."

It took our hero and his hunter companion but a little while to accept the invitation, the more so as Joe was already more or less one of the corporation Sam was forming.

"There's dollars in the scheme right through," Hank said, as they sat round the stove that evening. "Ef you'll have me as one of the band, I'll apply for my two hundred acres right off, paying for 'em, for I ain't able to take up more free land. Joe's in the same fix. But he aer got the dollars to pay. We'll come north with you and do a little lumbering. Afterwards he and I kin move on farther, for I've a proposition of my own to look into."

"But – " began Joe, who had been a listener for the most part up till now.

"Huh! He's agoin' to criticize the scheme and pour cold water on it," grinned Hank, swinging round on our hero. "Tell you, Sam, this here youngster aer had his eyes opened wide sense he came out, and he's turnin' into a business farmer. Wall, what are it?"

"This lumbering," began Joe diffidently, colouring at so much attention being attracted to him.

"Just you give 'em what you think and don't be afraid," cried Mrs. Fennick encouragingly. "The lad that could organize volunteers aboard ship has a right to speak. Sam, likely as not he'll show you and Hank that you've made a big error somewheres. Now, Joe."

"I was merely asking about the lumbering," said Joe. "I always gathered that lumberers were men who were more or less trained. They go out in gangs, don't they?"

"And so'll we," interrupted Sam, with eagerness. "But there ain't so many chaps out here that hasn't had a turn with the gangs some time. I've done a season; p'raps Hank has too."

"You bet," came from that individual. "I've done most things 'way out here, from gold diggin' to farming pure and simple. Huntin' aer my proper trade, but I ain't too proud to do anything. Even when I'm my own master I ain't above takin' on a job for someone else ef I've the time, and the money's good enough."

"Then there's two of us has done the work before," declared Sam. "Eight or nine of the boys I've fixed it with to join our corporation are already up in the woods, where we'll join 'em. They've a shack built this three months, and no doubt they've started in felling."

It appeared, indeed, as if the thoughtful Sam had made very complete arrangements, and there was little doubt but that Hank, as an old and experienced colonial, was delighted.

"It aer a fine proposition," he repeated for perhaps the twentieth time. "When other folks is buried in the snow, and only finding work with feeding the cattle and sichlike, we'll be cutting timber that'll bring dollars in the summer, and be back on our holdings time enough to plough and sow and make ready for harvest. Autumn will see us threshing, and by the time the grain is hauled down to the railway there'll be frosts. Then out we go again. Gee, Sam, this fair tickles me!"

A week later the little band of lumbermen was collected together, while Tom Egan, a sturdy settler some fifty years of age, had arrived from his own little shack across the valley and had taken up his residence at Sam's dwelling, where it was arranged that Mrs. Fennick should stay with Egan's wife and children.

"Yer see," explained Sam, "a lumber camp ain't no sorter place for a woman. It's rough living all the while. Men are packed together as close as sardines, and even then it's mighty cold. So the missus stays here with the Egans while we move on."

They slung their traps over their shoulders, and with snowshoes on their feet set out towards the north. The thaw of the past week had by now given way to severe frosts, while there had been a heavy fall of snow. However, none but a confirmed grumbler could have found fault with the conditions, for a bright sun flooded the landscape, shimmering on hillocks of snow, throwing long blue shadows athwart the hollows, and causing the millions of particles of ice to flash and scintillate. There was a dry, exhilarating crispness about the atmosphere that was typically Canadian, a bracing coldness that made the little band step out briskly, Hank at their head, Sam following; then Joe, and Jim and Claude, the two young friends he had made aboard the steamer, marching side by side. Dick Parsons, a lanky, bearded colonial, brought up the rear, a veritable grenadier in proportions.

They formed a merry party in their lean-to that night, and went on their journey on the following morning with undiminished vigour. Late the following day the crisp ring of axes coming to their ears through the tree trunks of the forest they had plunged into some hours before told them that the lumber camp was within easy distance. Shouts greeted them as they trailed into a narrow clearing, at the back of which stood a low-built shack half-buried in snow, and with its roof supporting a vast mass of that material. Smoke issued gently from a centrally-placed chimney, while the door was wide open. Hearty indeed was the greeting, then the hut swallowed the whole party.

"You've jest come along in time for tea," cried one of the lumbermen, a bearded giant even taller than Parsons. "Sit ye down right there and we'll give you a meal that'll show you how we've been living. Bill, you fish out that bear's meat you've a-stewing, while we others get the tea on the table."

The table, let us explain, was a mere apology for that article as civilized individuals understand the term, for your lumberman has no time to devote to the niceties of furniture construction. Joe indeed found himself marvelling at the crudeness of their work and yet at its obvious utility; for split stakes had been driven into the ground down the centre of the shack, and cross pieces nailed on top. More long split logs secured to these formed the top of a table some two feet wide. As for benches, they were fashioned in the same manner along either side, and were by now fully occupied. A huge enamelled-ware teapot was passing from hand to hand, while Bill, the cook to this expedition, was standing at one end of the table dealing out helpings of a savoury bear-meat stew that tickled the nostrils of everyone.

"What about sleeping?" asked Joe presently, when the meal was finished and the lumber gang had gathered round the open fire placed at one end of the table. "Is there another room?"

"Another!" exclaimed Harvey Bent, the chief of the party. "Young man, there ain't time fer buildin' luxuries when you're lumberin', and what's more, guess there ain't warmth enough. Time we turns in to-night there'll be jest about room fer the lot of us, and no more. The closer we are the warmer, and 'way out here, when the thermometer's down below zero, that means something to men who has to work."

Joe and his friends found that the sleeping accommodation was quaint in the extreme. Along one side of the shack a sloping platform had been built of the usual split logs, and piles of blankets lay upon it. Going to bed was a simple proceeding in this lumber camp; for men merely slipped off their boots and hats and wrapped themselves in a blanket. Then they lay down side by side, packed closely together, so closely, in fact, that to turn was an impossibility. But Joe and his young friends, who were novices like himself, discovered very soon that these old lumbermen were not without consideration. They allowed for the possibility of a change of position, and that very night, some time in the small hours, a hoarse command awakened them.

"Heave!" they heard, and promptly, more asleep than awake, the band of men rolled over on to the other side and once more settled into snores and slumber.

"It's a sight that'll do your eyes good," declared Hank, early on the following morning, when the gang had eaten. "You watch these fellers cutting down their timber. It ain't likely that you'll be wanted fer much to-day, and so we'll take a look at 'em and then see their mates. All of the gang ain't fellers. It stands to reason that someone's got to deal with the timber when it's down, and has to haul it out of the way to where the water kin deal with it. We're high up here, for we was climbing most of yesterday, and this here shack aer located jest at the top of a steep slope cutting sheer down to the lake that Sam mentioned. You come along with me; when we've had a look round we kin tackle a job with the others."

Donning their snowshoes and taking their rifles with them – for it was already agreed that Hank should hunt for the gang and procure them fresh meat – he and Joe went sliding off along the hillside, and presently, reaching a spot where the lumberman's axe had cleared the trees, were able to get a clear view of their surroundings. Down below them, two or more hundred feet perhaps, was a vast expanse of white, unbroken for the most part, though here and there there was a dark-coloured elevation denoting an island, the huge expanse being the frozen and snow-covered surface of the lake. Beyond there was forest, patched with snow, silent and forbidding. As for the steep slope at that part, it was scored with a hundred and more tracks.

"Where the logs slide down to the lake," said Hank. "Now we'll go along and see 'em at it. My, these trees are mighty big, and will saw into fine logs! Ef that railway comes up this way, as Sam believes, timber'll be wanted, and the work that's being done here will bring its own reward. Ah! there's axes! Jest you come and see how a Canadian lumberman tackles a forest giant, and can throw the tree jest wherever he wants."

Joe marvelled, indeed, at the skill and the energy of the lumbermen. Hearty, healthy fellows one and all, they went at their work as if they loved it. Cutting niches with their axes high up the stem of a giant, they drove wooden stakes into the crevices thus prepared, and soon had a platform built on this somewhat insecure foundation. Then came the ring of axes swiftly falling, a hoarse cry of warning, twice repeated, followed by a reverberating roar as the giant succumbed to human forces, crashing to the ground with a thud which shook the surroundings. Joe stood by as one of the biggest of the trees tumbled, and watched the lumbermen shredding the branches from the fallen timber. The naked trunk was then levered with crowbars, and with a final jerk was sent skidding and sliding down the hillside, to come to a halt at the bottom, perhaps on the frozen surface of the lake, or at any rate within a few feet of it.

"There's a couple of men working down there with a hoss," explained Hank. "They hitches on to the logs that don't reach the lake and drag 'em into position. Look away down. There's a hull crowd of timber waitin' for the end of winter."

"And then?" asked Joe, for he was ignorant for the most part of the work of lumbermen.

"Why, the ice breaks up," said Hank, "the logs gets carried into the lake, and the 'drivers' takes 'em in hand. A mighty hard and dangerous job theirs is, too. They has to be at it night and day, wet and fine. Each of 'em has a long pole with a spike at the end, and their particular work aer to send the logs down. Sometimes the stream carries 'em all right. Sometimes they gets hung up in corners and eddies, and the driver has to set 'em afloat agin. Then, down at the bottom of a lake same as this it ain't so seldom that logs and ice'll form a jam. One of the logs gets across the outlet, stuck up on a rock or two. Others piles up behind, with blocks of ice maybe, till there's ten foot high of logs and stuff, with a mass of water and ice and logs 'way behind. That aer a ticklish job to tackle, and many a driver has been killed or drowned. But they ain't never afraid, and there ain't much that they can't do. I've seed 'em hopping from floating log to log and steering a single trunk downstream, as ef they was aboard a canoe and not on top of a thing that'd roll over with the ordinary feller. Now, we'll make right off out of hearing of the camp. Bill war telling me this morning that when that bear's meat aer done, there ain't nothing left but pork."

It was with the keenness of a schoolboy that Joe threw himself into the work at the lumber camp. That very evening he was told off with the hauling gang, and for a month and more assisted in dragging the felled timber to the edge of the lake; and never once did he find the hours drag or the work too heavy. As for the evenings, they were a delight to all; for your lumberman's camp is a veritable club. There, with the door shut and a hot fire burning, the men made a circle once their meal was finished. Pipes were filled, and clouds of smoke obscured the surroundings, dimming the rays from the single oil lantern hanging overhead. And what yarns those colonials could tell! Rugged, honest fellows, they spoke in a simple manly manner which was captivating. The boaster was not to be found amongst them; their tales were of deeds which had actually occurred, while the truth of their statements was apparent. As for chaff, they were never done with it. Harmless jokes and horse-play made the evenings jovial and merry. It was thus that our hero passed a portion of his first Canadian winter, revelling in the brisk atmosphere and in his work, boon companion to every member of the lumber gang. Then he and Hank bade farewell to their comrades and, shouldering their packs, set out for the north, for a country hardly ever explored, where danger and difficulty awaited them.