I couldn't keep a capable working crew three weeks on
end. On the other hand, take a bunch of loggers on a pay roll working
for a man that meets them on an equal footing--why, they'll go to hell
and back again for him. They're as loyal as soldiers to the flag.
They're a mighty self-sufficient, independent lot, these lumberjacks,
and that goes for most everybody knocking about in this
country,--loggers, prospectors, miners, settlers, and all. If you're
what they term 'all right,' you can do anything, and they'll back you
up. If you go to putting on airs and trying to assert yourself as a
superior being, they'll go out of their way to hand you packages of
trouble."

"I see," she observed thoughtfully. "One's compelled by circumstances to
practice democracy."

"Something like that," he responded carelessly and went on eating his
supper.

"Don't you think we could make this place a lot more homelike, Charlie?"
she ventured, when they were back in their own quarters. "I suppose it
suits a man who only uses it as a place to sleep, but it's bare as a
barn."

"It takes money to make a place cosy," Benton returned. "And I haven't
had it to spend on knickknacks."

"Fiddlesticks!" she laughed. "A comfortable chair or two and curtains
and pictures aren't knickknacks, as you call them. The cost wouldn't
amount to anything."

Benton stuffed the bowl of a pipe and lighted it before he essayed
reply.

"Look here, Stella," he said earnestly. "This joint probably strikes you
as about the limit, seeing that you've been used to pretty soft
surroundings and getting pretty nearly anything you wanted whenever you
expressed a wish for it. Things that you've grown into the way of
considering necessities _are_ luxuries. And they're out of the question
for us at present. I got a pretty hard seasoning the first two years I
was in this country, and when I set up this camp it was merely a place
to live. I never thought anything about it as being comfortable or
otherwise until you elected to come. I'm not in a position to go in for
trimmings. Rough as this camp is, it will have to go as it stands this
summer. I'm up against it for ready money. I've got none due until I
make delivery of those logs in September, and I have to have that
million feet in the water in order to make delivery. Every one of these
men but the cook and the donkey engineer are working for me with their
wages deferred until then. There are certain expenses that must be