Part 6

The gift of work to unhappy mortals is that they cannot work and be wholly unhappy, and Pete sucked a grim kind of pleasure out of the labour that was his, and found some anodyne in it for the aching wound he bore in his foolish childish heart. That day the labour was great, for Ginger White had a mind to set the pace and make it fiery. It was, as the men knew, one of his bad, his wicked days, such a day as that on which he had driven Pete's predecessor to a standstill. When Ginger's face was tallow against his fiery beard they knew what to expect, and got it every time. It was said that on these occasions he had quarrelled with his wife, but the truth is he had a vicious nature and a love of work together. It gave him pleasure to see the great saws do their work, and a greater pleasure still to see a man turn white and fail.

But now he had Pete, not Simmons, and the devil himself at the Saws would not have broken Pete that day. For there was a hard devil in his heart, and he grinned savagely as he saw White's motions get every minute quicker and quicker. He nudged Skookum Charlie.

"This Ginger White have one bad day. The debbel, how he go. You see!"

They saw. He cut them wicked slabs, slabs that had an unholy weight, with all of it in the butt. When they fell they dropped between the skids and got up and kicked. One struck Skookum on the nose and made it bleed, another threw Pete. But though they both knew that Ginger gave it them hot and heavy and wasted wood in slabs to do it, they made no sign. This was a day that no one would be beaten. All the men knew by instinct and by knowledge that this was to be a day of hell, when the cut would be great and Ginger would go home half dead with his endeavours to work them up. They set their teeth, even as the saws' teeth were set in another fashion, and prepared to chew the lumber that he hurled to them.

The atmosphere was strange, charged, electric, strained. There were days when the Tyee Sawyer left them slack, and went easy. Now they jumped, their eyes were bright, they sweated, got alive, moved like lightning. Each was an automaton; each a note struck by the Player. And he played, oh, tilikum, he played!

This was work, tilikum, such as even the Stick Moola hadn't known. The engines knew it, and the steam gauges told it and the fires, and the sawdust carriers. Chinamen knew it and shrieked horrid oaths at each other. The belts knew it and squealed. Scotty knew it and groaned, for he alone, bar accidents, could stop Ginger's drunken debauch of labour.

But the men he played on knew it best and almost cheered him when they got the pace and found it at first so easy. They were all young, not an old man among them, Ginger White himself was the senior of them all. They could love and work and fight and play hell, for they had youth in them. They had to show it to the song and dance of the Saw, the song and dance of the flying dust. The engines ran easy, and their muscles played beneath a glistening moist skin as with open shirts they did what came to their hands. "Go it, you devils," and "Let her scoot," and "Oh, hell," they said.

They smiled and were happy enough, but as the hum increased and the great skids got full over against the Pony Saw, you might have seen Long Mac's smile die down into a good settled seriousness, quite worth seeing. Long Mac had a way of dreaming as he worked, for he had a power of thought and was sadly intelligent, but when Ginger started trying them high, he had no time to think, well as he knew all things a saw-mill man may and shall know. The skids were piled high, you shall understand, you greenhorns, and he knew how it would rejoice Ginger White to see that they would take no more, while everything the wedgers-off tried to sling on the pile rolled backwards to the very rollers. That would please White: he would give a shrug of his shoulders as if to say--

"What a damned loafing lazy lot I've to do with!"

"To hell with Ginger," said Mac. He set his teeth. The lumber flew: he took risks: for swift running in a Mill means risks. Some of the lumber was shaky, ring-shakes and wind-shakes were in it, and in some of the wet-shakes fine white gum. When the saw strikes a shake the loose pieces work out: some are like to touch the teeth of the saw and get picked up! What that means is that the helper to the Pony Saw is shot at by jagged lumps of wood: they come by whizzing like a horrid bullet. Mac and his man watched and at times Mac lifted his hand and his helper ducked as the Saw said "Phit, phit," and threw things at him. It was exciting, it made the blood run fast in his veins to know that at any moment he might be killed, and be so quiet.

This was the battle of the lumber: for saws kill men and logs, kill them and maim them, oho, but the day was fine and the fight long! Down in the boom the man of the Boom, the man with the long pole, who made the logs swim to their ascent to the Temple, whence they were dragged by the Bull-Wheel, had his work cut out, but worked. If he kept Ginger waiting, Ginger would skip over the skids and come to the open way that led down to the Boom and use sulphurous language.

"What the--how the--why the--oh, hell, are we to shut down and go home? Hump yourself, Paul, hump yourself."

And much worse if it hadn't been that Paul, a thin silent dark man, was reputed dangerous, and was said to have killed a man in Texas, somewhere in the neighbourhood of El Paso, where not a few pass up the golden stairs on an unholy sudden. But the atmosphere down there is fine, in its way: you shall not believe otherwise, I entreat you.

It was towards noon when Mac had Ginger beat or near it. Or if not that, he saw that Mac wasn't to be overcome. The Trimmers, Wong, the Chinee, and Willett, the Englishman, had the thing down fine, for Wong knew his business and Willett was at hard as a keg of nails or a coil of barbed wire. He could claw and sling and work and sweat with any.

And still Ginger sent the thing going and again spurted, for Quin came in!

"Stand back, clear the track for Mr. Josephus Orange-Blossom," said the nigger, the coon, the "shiny" (not a Sheeny, by the way) of the song. That was the way Quin felt. He felt like someone in particular. Indeed he always did, but now with Jenny at his house, clad in beautiful clothes and looking "a real daisy," he was very proud of himself. That's the way the male has, if the truth be said, men or moose or wapiti, or a lion or a tiger for that matter: or, let us say, a tom-cat.

He was full of himself! And all he wanted to do now was to "fire" Pete and get him out of the place, as was natural.

Some men would have done it even without excuse, though that is difficult, but George Quin had some natural or unnatural notion of justice and couldn't go so far. He watched Pete with critical half-savage eyes. Was there a glint of pity in them? Perhaps, tilikum, for a man is hard to know.

If this was Ginger's day and Ginger's hour when Quin looked in, it was Pete's day too, for he threw his poor outraged Indian soul into labour and did, oh, he did very well. Quin saw that he did, he was pleased with the man, and seeing that he had to pay him, the work pleased him. Pete's face was hard now and his eyes glittered: his muscles stood up: his face and neck were wet: they glistened. He went like a machine: and never made a mistake. He climbed a five-foot log on the carriage close to the teeth of the saw (the sawdust was in his hair and it looked white and woolly) like a cougar, at one bound. He worked up Skookum Charlie in like manner and made the Siwash like it.

"Oh, he's good," said Quin approving and yet savage. "Oh, he's----" and then Scotty yanked the whistle lanyard and the whistle said, "Knock off, you galoots, galoots, galoo-oots!"

The men threw up their heads, and most wiped their brows as they straightened their backs and said "Oo!" They breathed and filled their lungs and then thought of their empty bellies and started for the Hash-house. But White, always polite and obsequious, stayed a while with Quin.

"We've cut a lot, Mr. Quin," said White; "the boom's nigh empty."

"More in to-day," replied Quin. "How's your wedger-off doin'? If he don't suit you, fire him, White."

"He's the best man I've had this year," said White. He did not understand why Quin grunted and turned his back on him. If he had known Pete would have gone that day.

"What's wrong?" asked White. "Well, I made 'em skip to-day."

So the men thought as they piled into the hash, and said what they thought of him and grubbed in anticipation of an afternoon the equal of the morning.

"He's a swine but a first-class sawyer, and no mistake, no fatal error, eh, what? He made us skip and sweat to-day, but never piled us up! That was what the tallow-faced swine was after, eh?"

"You bet! Here Fan Tong, or Hang Chow, more chow this way! White's a swine; oh, he made us skip."

"'E's a 'oly terror," said Willett.

"A tough from Terror Flat!"

"No razor in his boot, though! There ain't no real fight in Tallow-Chops. Pass the mustard."

What a good life it was! And the chewing was good enough for a boss hobo, death on three fine squares or set-downs, and don't you forget it!

But Pete grubbed silently in Indian Annie's, who moaned to him about Jenny.

"Damn klootchman, I forget her," said Pete. Yet many days passed and he did not forget.

When they were all out of the Mill, Quin stood and stared at the dead saws without seeing them.

"It's hard lines: but I can't fire him," said Quin.

IX

For the workers, these Bees in a Wood Hive, the days passed swiftly. Oh, it was wonderful how they passed! The dawn broke up night's massed army and chased it into the Pacific Ocean, and round the quick little world, and again fled. The days went round like a wheel, like a saw. They came up and flowered: they died down and were not. Only Sunday stayed like a monstrous month, an oppression as all workers find it, an unnecessary day when every muscle and nerve ask for the habit of big work. We cursed and groaned on Sunday, tilikum, and if you don't like to believe it, there's no one will plug you for doing the other thing. Sunday wasn't an Oasis, it was a desert. On Monday it was, however, desirable: Tuesday pined for it: Wednesday yearned for it: Thursday screamed for it: Friday sickened for it and Saturday hallooed joyfully with it in sight. And by ten on Sunday the Workers loathed it.

But the swift days of work were the days. They streamed past like a mountain torrent. Even sad and sorry Pete found it so. He smote his wedges with his maul and, lo and behold! a day was dead; and the stars sang above the hills and the starlight gleamed on the Fraser's shining flood. He laid his head, his cabeza, on a pillow (unwashed) and it was day. Again it was night.

Yet for one the hours were strange and slow. She looked out from the house on the hill-side and saw the slow sun wheel his team into the West, as if his horses drew innumerable thousands and hundreds of the world's big freight. Poor Jenny, now plump and sweet and beautifully clad, and learned in the delights of hot water (of which Sam was a kind of prophet, for he loved baths as if he were a Japanese), found the days slow in spite of baths and clothes and cleanliness. The poor dear pined a little, as one might who had lived wildly, for the ruder joys of her earlier life. Things were onerous. She wanted at certain hours to sit down, to "squat upon her hunkers" and suck at a pipe, perhaps. A yarn with wretched Annie or Annawillee would have been pleasing. She even thought of Pete, though she was getting very fond of her conqueror Quin, who dominated her wonderfully. That was her nature; for if some conqueror of Quin had come along she would have gone with him, very likely, as a wapiti hind will follow a conquering wapiti. And yet who can say? I cannot; for I think she loved Quin very well indeed, though he denied her the trivial consolations of Indian bawdry with Annie or mournful Annawillee.

Somehow I think Jenny was very good. One can't say. She grew prettier and gentler every day, every hour. Sam admired her frankly and was very polite. It was his nature. He told Quin quite openly what he thought, and sometimes gave him good advice.

"My tinkee Missus heap pletty, Mista Quin," said Sam, "evely day mo' pletty, maskee my tinkee she velly sad, hab noting to do. Missus wantche flin, Mista Quin, t'at what she wantchee. No can lead, no can lite, my tinkee, no can makee dless allo tim'. T'at velly sad. No likee cookee chow-chow, she say."

He shook his head. She wanted a friend ("wantchee flin"), that was a fact, and all Quin could do was to order her more dresses and linen from Victoria. He got her picture-books (for, as Sam said, "she no can lead") and talked to her about what she saw there. When he was with her she was happy.

"I velly happy at night-time, Tchorch," she said meekly. "But daytime velly keely, very sad."

"Tchorch" Quin picked her up in his arms and set her on his knee.

"Litty gal, I love you, tenas," he answered, mixing the lingoes. Perhaps he did love her. Quien sabe?--as Chihuahua said about everything uncertain.

"You love me, Tchorch?" she asked flushing, "velly much?"

"Tenas, hyu, hyu, very much indeed, little one."

"I not mind if the day is sad, then," said Jenny. She regarded him with big sad eyes, and then looked down.

"But I not a good woman, Tchorch."

Quin frowned and grumbled.

"Damn nonsense, tenas."

But it wasn't damn nonsense to Jenny. And most especially it wasn't so on Sundays, though on that day she had George Quin all to herself and the greedy Mill stood quiet. On Sundays she heard the tinkling church bells, and when the wind blew lightly from the east the sound of distant singing came up to her as she stood at the open window. She remembered what the good Missionary, the "kloshe leplet," had said about goodness, and badness, and the Commandments. There were ten of them, Jenny remembered, though she had been to no service ever since she lived at Cultus Muckamuck's ranche.

"I velly wicked, Tchorch," she said mournfully. "I blake the Commandments!"

"Humph," said George Quin, "don't cry about it, kiddy. I've kicked 'em all to flinders myself. If you go to Lejaub's hyas piah, I go with you, tenas."

He kissed her. His bold and ready undertaking to go to hell with her was really very consoling. His statement that he had broken all the Commandments comforted her: it showed his good faith. Jenny had a wonderfully material view of hell, and her imagination showed it to her as a sawmill in flames. She had seen the Mill at Kamloops on fire, that is why. Now George Quin was the Manager of the Mill and the owner and a big strong man. She had a kind of dim notion that he would be able to manage a good deal even in hell.

And besides she loved him really. There's no doubt about it, and even he knew it.

The big strong brute of a man was very gentle with her, and let her "cly" a little when she thought of the good missionary (who happened to have been a very bad man, by the way, though many of them were splendid) and the wood fires of the diabolical saw-mill of which Lejaub the devil was manager.

But he never knew how her feelings worked on her when he was away, and indeed if he had known there might not have been the trouble that there was. And he had entirely forgotten that he had a Bible in the house: the gift of his old mother who still lived in Vermont, far away to the East.

The Bible was the source of all the woe that followed when a big deal in lumber took Quin over to Victoria and kept him there three days. He had more than half a mind to take her with him, and if her speech hadn't betrayed her origin he would have done it like a shot. And when he went Jenny cried as if he were going to cross the Big Salt Chuck or the Pacific. Though her mother had been a Hydah she knew nothing of the waters.

"I much aflaid of Pete," she thought.

But Quin gave great directions to Sam and he believed he could trust him.

"My look see evely ting," said Sam. "Missus all light: my givee good chow-chow, hot wata, blush dlesses, t'at all light. My no lettee Missus go out? No, good, my no lettee."

But he played Fan-tan of course, and couldn't be expected to stay in all the time, or to understand that the Missus was upset in her mind about morality. And he knew nothing and cared less about the Bible. There wasn't the making of a rice Christian in him unless rice was very scarce indeed, and now he lived on the fat of the land of British Columbia.

So the day after she had cried herself to sleep, she came across the Bible.

It was not quite a family Bible, and only weighed a pound or so, but it had a biblical cover of sullen puritanical leather which suggested that the very bookbinder himself was of the sourest disposition, a round-head, a kill-joy, with ethics equal to the best Scotch morality. This binding alone, however, would have had comparatively little effect on the childish mind of Jenny. But the book had in it dour and savage pictures of so surprising a lack of artistic merit that they struck her down at once, poor child. In spite of the lack of colour the dreadful draughtsman made very effective curly-whirly flames in a hell which was remarkably like a study of a suburban coal-cellar, and the victims of his fire and ferocity expressed the extremest anguish as they fried on eternal grids! Oh, horrors, but the pictures brought back to the fearful mind of the tenas klootchman all the dread with which the good (or bad) minister, Alexander Mickie, had inspired her when she attended Sunday School at Kamloops and heard him preach in Chinook. For Chinook is no more than a few hundred words and most of them are very material. So was Mickie's mind, whether he preached openly or drank in secret, and the hyas piah of Lejaub, or the great fire of the Devil (Lejaub being equal to Le Diable), was a hot wood fire to Jenny. She believed naturally enough in Lejaub much more than in God, for her Indian blood helped her there, or rather hindered her, and the English God was a far-off notion to a mind not given to high abstractions.

So Jenny when she got the picture Bible sat with it in her lap and trembled.

"I a bad woman, I go to hell; very wrong for me to love Tchorch!" was her mind's commentary as she turned the blind pages for some other picture.

And every now and again she turned back to the curling flames and elaborate grids of hell. She traced in some anguished lineaments a remote likeness to herself. Then she fell to weeping, and weeping Sam found her. He was sympathetic. On the whole Sam was a very good sort.

"Why you cly, Missus?"

It was in vain for her to say she wasn't crying.

"Oh, yes, you cly, Missus, but what for you cly? Mista Quin he come back to-molla."

He might even be back that night, as Sam knew, though he would not be till late. But Jenny sobbed and the Bible slipped from her knees upon the floor. Sam picked it up and recognised it at once. He snorted as he gave it her back.

"My tinkee no good lead dis," he said solemnly. "My tinkee all the stolies in it lies, Missis. My savvy one, two, tree, piecee Joss-pidgin-man Chinaside, what you callee leplet, my savvy Yingling word, miss'onary, and he talkee no good. My tinkee him got wata topside, clazy, pelton you say."

Out of this difficult hishee-hashee of words Jenny extracted the notion that in Sam's opinion missionaries were fools, for "leplet" and "pelton" put together mean that. She shook her head and sobbed.

"My tinkee no good makee littee Missus cly," said Sam. "T'at book makee nicee litty gal cly allo time. My see um. No good littee gal cly: my say it damn foolo book. Mista Quin him velly good man: plenty chow-chow, dlesses and Sam for washee evelyting. Missus, you no lead Bible. Him no good. Damn foolo stoly, my savvy."

But what good was it for a Chinaman to tell her that?

"Him velly good book, I tink, Sam," she said earnestly.

"My no tinkee," returned Sam.

"It belongs to Mista Quin," urged the "Missus."

"Him never lead him," said Sam triumphantly. "My putty him away and Mista Quin him never savvy."

Perhaps that was true. But then was not "Tchorch" wicked too?

Her lips trembled and she opened the book again at the fiery picture.

"What t'at picture?" asked Sam, quite eager to see.

"It's hell," said Jenny, trembling.

"Ah," said Sam, "t'at Debelo's house. T'at all light. Wong him velly clever man, him say Debble-Debble here all light, but only China-side belong God. My tinkee too. Wong say one time no food, no licee, and evelybody hungly, and makee player to Posa, allo same God, and nex' day one foot licee all over. T'at China-side, galaw. But my no can stay: my cookee chow-chow: Missus no cly, Debble-Debble never take litty gal, Missus."

But the fact remained that even Sam believed the devil was in British Columbia (and all America, of course), even if God only thought of China. On the whole Sam's cheerful intervention did harm rather than good. Jenny did put the book away and tried not to think of the "hyas piah," but as the evening came on there was a gorgeous sunset and even that brought fire to her timid mind. When it was dark she shivered and was glad to see a light. Then she got out the book again.

She was living a very wicked life, oh, yes, the missionaries would say that. She was Pete's wife and was living with Tchorch! That was very wrong, it was against the Commandments.

What ought she to do?

What was right?

If only George were back! That is what her heart said, for now she hungered for him very bitterly, because she felt she would see him no more. The little girl had gone so far on the burning path of repentance. She _must_ see him no more: and what she saw in the gloom was the glow of the Pit itself. She ran to the window and looked down on the quiet world and the few shining lights of the quiet city and the star-shine on the great river. But all these were as nothing to her loneliness and her sudden fear and all the awful threats of hell that came back to her in such an hour. She fell upon her knees and tried to pray and found herself murmuring, "Tchorch, dear Tchorch." He was coming back to her that night and was glad to come back, for he had no notion, no adequate notion of what a bad man he was. He loved the tenas klootchman, loved her far better, perhaps, than the white woman who had scorned him because of dead Lily's predecessors.

But Lily was now no more than a dead flower unremembered in some spring garden. He was going back to Jenny.

She cried as she prayed to God and said "Tchorch!" George was the little foolish woman's prayer, and it may be a good one. The name of the Beloved is for ever a prayer, tillikum.

It was nearly ten o'clock when Sam looked in. He did not think Quin would come now. It was late for the S.S. _Yosemite_.

"You all light, Missus?" he asked.

And she said that she was all right and Sam went away down to Wong's shack for an hour's Fan-tan. He hoped to make a few dollars easily, so that he could go back China-side and buy one "litty piecee waifo" for himself so that he could have children to attend to his ashes and his kindly paternal spirit.

But Jenny saw her spirit, her soul, her body, in the flames.

She must go back to Pete, and ask him to forgive her. He would beat her badly, she knew, and he would tear her "dless" from her and speak things of shame.