he one I had been in, and several
stores and saloons. The lumber-camp was a little town. A rambling log
cabin attracted me by reason of the shaggy mustangs standing before it
and the sounds of mirth within. A peep showed me a room with a long bar,
where men and boys were drinking. I heard the rattle of dice and the
clink of silver. Seeing the place was crowded, I thought I might find
Dick there, so I stepped inside. My entrance was unnoticed, so far as I
could tell; in fact, there seemed no reason why it should be otherwise,
for, being roughly dressed, I did not look very different from the many
young fellows there. I scanned all the faces, but did not see Dick's,
nor, for that matter, the Mexican's. Both disappointed and relieved, I
turned away, for the picture of low dissipation was not attractive.

The hum of the great sawmill drew me like a magnet. I went out to the
lumber-yard at the back of the mill, where a trestle slanted down to
a pond full of logs. A train loaded with pines had just pulled in,
and dozens of men were rolling logs off the flat-cars into a canal. At
stations along the canal stood others pike-poling the logs toward the
trestle, where an endless chain caught them with sharp claws and hauled
them up. Half-way from, the ground they were washed clean by a circle of
water-spouts.

I walked up the trestle and into the mill. The noise almost deafened me.
High above all other sounds rose the piercing song of the saw, and the
short intervals when it was not cutting were filled with a thunderous
crash that jarred the whole building. After a few confused glances I got
the working order into my head, and found myself in the most interesting
place I had ever seen.

As the stream of logs came up into the mill the first log was shunted
off the chain upon a carriage. Two men operated this carriage by levers,
one to take the log up to the saw, and the other to run it back for
another cut. The run back was very swift. Then a huge black iron head
butted up from below and turned the log over as easily as if it had been
a straw. This was what made the jar and crash. On the first cut the long
strip of bark went to the left and up against five little circular saws.
Then the five pieces slipped out of sight down chutes. When the log was
trimmed a man stationed near the huge band-saw made signs to those on
the carriage, and I saw that they got from him directions whether to
cut the log into timbers, planks, or boards. T