“I was struck dumb,” Dan Kenyon replied.  “I just stood there like one o’ these here graven images.  Last night on my way home from work I heerd the young feller was back—­he got in just as we was knockin’ off for the day; an’ this mornin’ just as you cut loose, Zeb, I’ll be danged if he didn’t show up in front o’ the office door, fumblin’ for the keyhole.  Yes, sirree!  That boy gets in at six o’clock last night an’ turns to on his paw’s job when the whistle blows this mornin’ at seven.”

“You mean young Bryce Cardigan?” Zeb queried incredulously.

“I shore do.”

“’Tain’t possible,” Zeb declared.  “You seen a new bookkeeper, mebbe, but you didn’t see Bryce.  He aint no such hog for labour as his daddy before him, I’m tellin’ you.  Not that there’s a lazy bone in his body, for there ain’t, but because that there boy’s got too much sense to come bollin’ down to work at seven o’clock the very first mornin’ he’s back from Yurrup.”

“I’m layin’ you ten to one I seen him,” Dan replied defiantly, “an’ what’s more, I’ll bet a good cigar—­a ten-center straight—­the boy don’t leave till six o’clock to-night.”

“You’re on,” answered the chief engineer.  “Them’s lumberjack hours, man.  From seven till six means work—­an’ only fools an’ hosses keeps them hours.”

The head sawyer leaned across the table and pounded with the handle of his knife until he had the attention of all present.  “I’m a-goin’ to tell you young fellers somethin’,” he announced.  “Ever since the old boss got so he couldn’t look after his business with his own eyes, things has been goin’ to blazes round this sawmill, but they ain’t a-goin’ no more.  How do I know?  Well, I’ll tell you.  All this forenoon I kept my eye on the office door—­I can see it through a mill winder; an’ I’m tellin’ you the old boss didn’t show up till ten o’clock, which the old man ain’t never been a ten o’clock business man at no time.  Don’t that prove the boy’s took his place?”

Confused murmurs of affirmation and negation ran up and down the long table.  Dan tapped with his knife again.  “You hear me,” he warned.  “Thirty year I’ve been ridin’ John Cardigan’s log-carriages; thirty year I’ve been gettin’ everythin’ out of a log it’s possible to git out, which is more’n you fellers at the trimmers can git out of a board after I’ve sawed it off the cant.  There’s a lot o’ you young fellers that’ve been takin’ John Cardigan’s money under false pretenses, so if I was you I’d keep both eyes on my job hereafter.  For a year I’ve been claimin’ that good No. 2 stock has been chucked into the slab-fire as refuge lumber.” (Dan meant refuse lumber.) “But it won’t be done no more.  The raftsman tells me he seen Bryce down at the end o’ the conveyin’ belt givin’ that refuge the once-over—­so step easy.”

“What does young Cardigan know about runnin’ a sawmill?” a planer-man demanded bluntly.  “They tell me he’s been away to college an’ travellin’ the past six years.”