Johnson vouchsafed no reply, but splashed away over the logs,
examining in detail the progress of the work. After a little he
returned within hailing distance.

"If you can't get out logs, why do you take the job?" he roared,
with a string of oaths. "If you hang my drive, damn you, you'll
catch it for damages! It's gettin' to a purty pass when any old
highbanker from anywheres can get out and play jackstraws holdin' up
every drive in the river! I tell you our mills need logs, and
what's more they're agoin' to GIT them!"

He departed in a rumble of vituperation.

Orde laughed humorously at his foreman.

"Johnson gets so mad sometimes, his skin cracks," he remarked.
"However," he went on more seriously, "there's a heap in what he
means, if there ain't so much in what he says. I'll go labour with
our old friend below."

He regained the bank, stopped to light his pipe, and sauntered, with
every appearance of leisure, down the bank, past the dam, to the
mill structure below.

Here he found the owner occupying a chair tilted back against the
wall of the building. His ruffled plug hat was thrust, as usual,
well away from his high and narrow forehead; the long broadcloth
coat fell back to reveal an unbuttoned waistcoat the flapping black
trousers were hitched up far enough to display woollen socks