Chapter 8

It was a still, clear morning, but autumn was in the air and a pale sun lacked the necessary heat to melt a skin of ice which, during the night, had covered stagnant pools. The damp moss which carpets northern forests was hoary with frost and it crackled underfoot. Winter was near and its unmistakable approach could be plainly felt.

A saw-pit had been rigged upon a sloping hillside--it consisted of four posts about six feet long upon which had been laid four stringers, like the sills of a house; up to this scaffold led a pair of inclined skids. Resting upon the stringers was a sizable spruce log which had been squared and marked with parallel chalk- lines and into which a whip-saw had eaten for several feet. Balanced upon this log was Tom Linton; in the sawdust directly under him stood Jerry Quirk. Mr. Linton glared downward, Mr. Quirk squinted fiercely upward. Mr. Linton showed his teeth in an ugly grin and his voice was hoarse with fury; Mr. Quirk's gray mustache bristled with rage, and anger had raised his conversational tone to a high pitch. Both men were perspiring, both were shaken to the core.

"DON'T SHOVE!" Mr. Quirk exclaimed, in shrill irritation. "How many times d'you want me to tell you not to shove? You bend the infernal thing."

"I never shoved," Linton said, thickly. "Maybe we'd do better if you'd quit hanging your weight on those handles every time I lift. If you've got to chin yourself, take a limb--or I'll build you a trapeze. You pull down, then lemme lift--"

Mr. Quirk danced with fury. "Chin myself? Shucks! You're petered out, that's what ails you. You 'ain't got the grit and you've throwed up your tail. Lift her clean--don't try to saw goin' up, the teeth ain't set that way. Lift, take a bite, then leggo. Lift, bite, leggo. Lift, bite--"

"Don't say that again!" shouted Linton. "I'm a patient man, but--" He swallowed hard, then with difficulty voiced a solemn, vibrant warning, "Don't say it again, that's all!"

Defiance instantly flamed in Jerry's watery eyes. "I'll say it if I want to!" he yelled. "I'll say anything I feel like sayin'! Some folks can't understand English; some folks have got lignumvity heads and you have to tell 'em--"

"You couldn't tell me anything!"

"Sure! That's just the trouble with you--NOBODY can tell you anything!"

"I whip-sawed before you was born!"

Astonishment momentarily robbed Mr. Quirk of speech, then he broke out more indignantly than ever. "Why, you lyin' horse-thief, you never heard of a whip-saw till we bought our outfit. You was for tying one end to a limb and the other end to a root and then rubbin' the log up and down it."

"I never meant that. I was fooling and you know it. That's just like you, to--"

"Say,