“Good Heavens!” she burst out.  “Is it necessary to be so downright brutal in actions as well as speech?”

“I’m running a logging camp, not a kindergarten,” he snapped angrily.  “I know what I’m doing.  If you don’t like it, go in the house where your hyper-sensitive tastes won’t be offended.”

“Thank you,” she responded cuttingly and swung about, angry and hurt—­only to have a fresh scare from the drunken cook, who came reeling forward.

“I’m gonna quit,” he loudly declared.  “I ain’t goin’ to stick ’round here no more.  The job’s no good.  I want m’ time.  Yuh hear me, Benton.  I’m through.  Com-pletely, ab-sho-lutely through.  You bet I am.  Gimme m’ time.  I’m a gone goose.”

“Quit, then, hang you,” Benton growled.  “You’ll get your check in a minute.  You’re a fine excuse for a cook, all right—­get drunk right on the job.  You don’t need to show up here again, when you’ve had your jag out.”

“’S all right,” Matt declared largely. “’S other jobs.  You ain’t the whole Pacific coast.  Oh, way down ’pon the Swa-a-nee ribber—­”

He broke into dolorous song and turned back into the cookhouse.  Benton’s hard-set face relaxed.  He laughed shortly.

“Takes all kinds to make a world,” he commented.  “Don’t look so horrified, Sis.  This isn’t the regular order of events.  It’s just an accumulation—­and it sort of got me going.  Here’s the boys.”

The four stretcher men set down their burden in the shade of the bunkhouse.  Renfrew was conscious now.

“Tough luck, Jim,” Benton sympathized.  “Does it pain much?”

Renfrew shook his head.  White and weakened from shock and loss of blood, nevertheless he bravely disclaimed pain.

“We’ll get you fixed up at the Springs,” Benton went on.  “It’s a nasty slash in the meat, but I don’t think the bone was touched.  You’ll be on deck before long.  I’ll see you through, anyway.”

They gave him a drink of water and filled his pipe, joking him about easy days in the hospital while they sweated in the woods.  The drunken cook came out, carrying his rolled blankets, began maudlin sympathy, and was promptly squelched, whereupon he retreated to the float, emitting conversation to the world at large.  Then they carried Renfrew down to the float, and Davis began to haul up the anchor to lay the Chickamin alongside.

While the chain was still chattering in the hawse pipe, the squat black hull of Jack Fyfe’s tender rounded the nearest point.

“Whistle him up, Sam,” Benton ordered.  “Jack can beat our time, and this bleeding must be stopped quick.”

The tender veered in from her course at the signal.  Fyfe himself was at the wheel.  Five minutes effected a complete arrangement, and the Panther drew off with the drunken cook singing atop of the pilot house, and Renfrew comfortable in her cabin, and Jack Fyfe’s promise to see him properly installed and attended in the local hospital at Roaring Springs.