Woodsmen of the West

by Martin Allerdale Grainger

  Now your logger likes to see artistic work done in the woods, and Carter’s methods are distasteful to him. “Carter! gar-r-r! don’t talk to me of Carter! He’s no logger. He don’t know how to log!” is a sentiment one often hears expressed. Carter hears of this, too. “I’m a Siwash logger,1 am I? Well, I am a Siwash logger. Well, and what then? Answer me now!” I’ve heard him say, meeting the contempt behind the word unflinchingly, hiding his galled vanity….

  So Carter from the very start set out to sack the woods, as mediaeval towns were sacked, by Vandal methods. He staked or bought some thirteen leases, I believe, to provide himself with timber sufficient for such policy. He constructed his camp buildings upon rafts of huge great logs, purposely; he built another raft to take the donkey-engine; he held himself prepared to move at any time. For he meant to move from lease to lease, exhausting each of its sea-front timber; making quick money. And this moving forced him to great adventures.

  1. Siwash logger=beach-comber of no account.

  THE EMPLOYER OF MEN

  There is no single thing in his career that convinces me so much of the essential greatness of some parts of Carter’s character as the fact that he has forced success to come to him as an employer of other men. For his task has been one of appalling difficulty.

  The Western logger of the better sort is pretty free with his dislike, to an employer. A boss who hustles on the work, as Carter does, incurs a special danger of ill-will that can be averted, only, by special qualities of character – for hustling the work comes perilously near to hustling the men who do it, a thing you must not dare attempt with loggers. And yet a certain amount of hustle is essential.

  To be efficient as a logging boss a man must not be too soft and easy-going, or else the work done for him will also bear that character and the logs he gets will cost him ruinously. Yet it is desirable that men should judge him as a “decent sort of fellow;” he must not be too hard, too grasping. He must not commit impertinence, advising or helping or criticising a man at work. Yet he must understand most thoroughly how everything should be done; and see that it be done the proper way; and give men the stimulus of knowing that they are working for a boss who can tell good work from bad….

  Please allow me to escape from cataloguing all the stronger qualities of man; for I recall a scene on Thibert Creek that illustrates the fine, sensitive vanity of the best sort of Western working-men. The mine boss, I remember, had come up the trail to where Bill Frazer was working. “Enough work here to last you all summer, Frazer,” he said genially, and passed on, pleased at the good work Frazer was doing. Frazer pondered over the remark. At last he came to the conclusion that what the boss had meant to hint was, “You are working so slow, Frazer, that it will take you all summer to do this trifling work.” He dropped his tools and left the camp….

  Imagine how unfitted Carter was to deal successfully with men so sensitive. The dissatisfied look he wears upon his face would ruffle their feelings, anger them, make them careless how they did his work. Again, Carter has a fatal air of the confirmed schoolmaster. He has been chastened by experience, and yet he has it badly even now, for it is of the very essence of his character. He can never see a man struggling with the difficulties of some job or other, he can never see hurrying men checked by some necessary delay, without throbbing with the desire to do the thing himself and “show them ruddy loafers how to work.” He has gained, through bitter episodes, enough sense to restrain himself, often; but at all times he makes men conscious of his contempt for their degree of skill, and of his dissatisfaction at the amount of work they get through. He makes them feel that they are just dead matter he uses for his own purposes, and throws away disgustedly when used. Men of any value will not tolerate that sort of thing; especially as Carter’s skill at any given job does not inspire their respect. They work a week or so for him, their dander rises, and they go.

  So Carter in busy times can only keep his camp equipped for work by aid of a continual stream of newly-hired men; and those (because his reputation spreads abroad) are rarely of the better sort. Think how difficult it must be, in a district far from places where men can be hired, to secure this stream of men; think how difficult to keep the stream steady, through steamboat accidents and foul weather; think of the useless riffraff that may be brought along with it; and think of the enormous expense and the heart-breaking interruptions to the logging work. Good men, too, are more or less essential for good, profitable working in the woods. Carter cannot keep them! Never was man more handicapped by defects in his own character, less capable of moderating them. And he has had some sharp lessons!

  Joe Collins told me that in the early days of his career as a boss-logger Carter once quarrelled with a certain man in his employ. The man “quit,” and was about to use one of the camp rowboats to take his blankets and himself across to Port Browning. This was the usual practice in the camp. But Carter on this occasion hid away the metal rowlocks of the boats. He hoped to spite the man, to make him lose a week, perhaps, idly waiting for a boat to pass that way. He hoped to make the man pay heavily for his meals while waiting. And so he would have done had not his men all mutinied at the outrage. There were about twelve of them working in the camp at that time. Their simmering dislike of Carter’s character boiled over. They “quit” suddenly, to a man. They threatened to tie Carter out in the sea until he should consent to find the rowlocks: they made him find them, made him pay all wages due. Then, taking all his rowboats, they rowed their cheerful way to Port Browning, and left the mortified Carter half crazed with futile hate. Nothing could have hurt him more cruelly. For to exert power over men is whisky to Carter’s soul: it is the craving for crude power that drives him at his life’s work. And here he had tried to satisfy his desire and had failed, and had been mocked bitterly.

  Carter, however, is often successful in small tyrannies, especially in money matters. In these he is helped by the carelessness of those with whom he deals. For in the logging country nearly all business is done by word of mouth; contracts are made verbally, and registered only in the memories of those who make them; and when a dispute arises in the course of any settlement, it is no uncommon thing for each side to find itself unable to produce the least evidence in support of its own word.

  Now I make no aspersion on Carter’s honesty. I have heard many enemies of his declare that Carter intends, at any rate, to “give a man a square deal,” and I myself have seen him do the fair thing with perfect naturalness when he might have done the other; and puzzled my brains in vain to find the reason why. But it is obvious that the absence of business methods and written agreements and formal understandings is to the advantage of a man who has, like Carter, a blind confidence in his own memory, distrust of the memories of other men, and a secret contempt for those with whom he deals. In fact, were it not that his main energies are devoted to toil and battle with the forest, Carter might find occasion to make much profit from his dealings with lesser men: happy-go-lucky loggers hired by Bill on some vague understanding about wages; who have bought supplies from Carter without troubling to ask about the prices; who have no guarantee of fair treatment than that which their physical appearance and their power of injuring Carter’s reputation by talk in the saloons may happen to inspire in Carter’s mind. Such profit, however, won by such harsh confidence in his own integrity, does not make an employer well spoken of. Because of this Carter must secure the men he needs by temptation of big wages, and even then he gets them ill-disposed. Without the use he makes of Bill’s popularity he could not hope to overcome this desperate handicap to profitable work.

  Bill it is who is sent out to hire men, and persuade storekeepers, and humour creditors, and settle inconvenient lawsuits out of court. Only once was Carter forced to leave his dear work and go to Vancouver to fight a lawsuit. On that occasion you might say that Carter was victorious; for when the case was called the plaintiff was unable to appear. He was found drunk, and the case went in Carter’s favour by default. But Ca
rter paid most dearly for the victory: the visit to Vancouver upset his fragile virtue, and the drunk he had to go upon cost him two weeks of precious time and several hundred dollars cash. So, should you ever wish to sue the firm of Carter & Allen for wages due, take my advice and enter suit against Carter personally. You will win your case; for he will be afraid to come to town. Carter, then, bides close in his far camp, and sends Bill upon his errands. And the two men are truly mated, as partners.

  Carter, of course, can only tolerate a man who seems subservient to his every whim; a man who will slave for him; who will submit, in moments of Carter’s anger, to be talked to like a dog. All this Bill will do, and never turn a hair. I have heard men say they have felt sick to hear Carter talking roughly to him. In his absence Carter will often work himself into a fury over Bill’s shortcomings, and threaten to throw him out of the partnership, and say the most mortifying things about him – things that men repeat to Bill, sooner or later. Hearing Carter’s loud talk, you would think Bill would often meet a stinging reception upon his return. But no! A nasty gleaming look, a sullen remark or two … and Carter’s appearance will soften; and Bill will hear no more of the threatened row. In fact, if Bill has taken care to bring up whisky with him to the camp, Carter will soon be heard confiding to some one (in the queerest voice!) that “Never had man such a partner. Bill’s a real fine boy; he’s the straight goods! Don’t let nobody never say nothing to ME about BILL. D’YE HEAR!!” It sounds like repentance prompted by affection. Carter and affection!

  Bill on his side takes not the least notice of Carter’s moods. He does as he is told, biddable as a child. He shuts his ears to abuse; he ignores contumely; he never makes the least complaint. And when men ask him how he can remain associate, in partnership, with such a man as Carter – and when they call Carter, as they often do, by unpardonable names – Bill will flare up in loyal defence of the man who uses him so badly. It is absurd to see so mild a man become so quarrelsome.

  “They name Carter a son-of-a-dog,” he has often said to me afterwards, bitterly, “and yet there’s none of them men enough to do what he has done, in work. And when he’s drinking there are lots of them mean enough to borrow his money, right and left, saying bad things of him behind his back.” Certainly Carter does give away money when he is drunk. And I know Bill has had some painful times when Carter has been drunk, pig-drunk, for seven or ten days together, senseless and bestial upon Port Browning beach, the butt and mock of hostile men.

  Bill’s admiration for his great partner glows visibly within him. He would have played Boswell to Carter’s Johnson. He yields to hero-worship. And in this I feel Bill’s sight is very clear. For among the clinkers and the base alloys that make up much of Carter’s soul there is a piece of purest metal, of true human greatness, an inspiration and a happiness to see.

  HAZARDING THE DONK

  One of the great moments in Carter’s life was that in which he paid the last instalment owing to the sawmill and looked with proud eyes upon a donkey-engine that was his very own. There, close by the beach, lay the great machine, worth, with all its gear, five thousand dollars. There, Carter could tell himself, was the fine object he had won by courage and by sheer hard work. There was the thing his earnings had created. Past earnings were no idle profit. There they were, in that donkey, in material form, working for him – helping him to get out logs and rise higher to Success.

  I make myself a picture, too, of an earlier moment in Carter’s life – on the first morning when his donkey began its work. He sees smoke whirling up among the forest trees; he sees the donkey’s smoke-stack above the rough shelter roof; the boiler, furnace, pistons underneath. And then the two great drums worked by the pistons, drums upon which are reeled the wire cables. And then the platform he himself has made, twenty feet by six in size, upon which boiler, engine, drums are firmly bolted: a platform that is a great sleigh resting upon huge wooden runners; hewn and framed together sound and solid.

  In the evening.

  A donkey.

  Watch Carter when the “donk” (his donkey!) has got up steam – its first steam; and when the rigging men (his rigging men!) drag out the wire rope to make a great circle through the woods. And when the circle is complete from one drum, round by where the cut logs are lying, back to the other drum; and when the active rigging slinger (his rigging slinger!) has hooked a log on to a point of the wire cable; and when the signaller (his signaller!) has pulled the wire telegraph and made the donkey toot … just think of Carter’s feelings as the engineer jams over levers, opens up the throttle, sets the thudding, whirring donkey winding up the cable, and drags the first log into sight; out from the forest down to the beach; bump, bump! Think what this mastery over huge, heavy logs means to a man who has been used to coax them to tiny movements by patience and a puny jack-screw … and judge if Happiness and Carter met on that great day….

  Carter, you understand, does not belong to the class of ingenious-minded men. He is not skilful; he does not improvise ingenious makeshifts; he does not readily pick up new knowledge. When he bought his donkey, for example, he knew nothing about the care of machinery or the handling of engines, and he was a poor blacksmith and no mechanic. And he was slow to learn. So, for a time, he was obliged to depend upon hired engineers; to risk his precious donkey in the hands of men of whose skill he had no means of estimating. But when he had gained a poor smattering of mechanical knowledge his rough self-confidence made him feel that smattering sufficient. Then Carter began to handle his donkey according to his own ideas.

  Skilled artists – hook-tenders, rigging slingers, engineers – hated to work for a man who had never learned the ABC of classical methods. Carter did without such men. He went at every problem by the light of nature – “bald-headed,” as the saying is – in furious attack. He would anchor out his wire cable around some tree, and make the donkey wind itself up mountain slopes, over rocks and stumps and windfall logs and all the obstacles of new-felled hillside forest. He would “jump the donk” aboard a raft from off the beach and tow it here and there along the coast. He did the things that skilled donkey-men can do. He handled his donkey in a stupid, clumsy fashion; muddling with it for want of skill, experience, and training; refusing assistance or advice from men who could have helped him. And yet he made that donkey go, in the end, where he willed it should go. He made it do his botching work, and made that botching work most profitable. He had no awe of his donkey, that great, awkward mechanism, nor of its ailments. He used it as in earlier days he may have used a wheelbarrow, as a thing that could be trundled anywhere, with freedom. But he had some heart-griping accidents. Once, I have heard, some stupidity of his allowed the donk to slide downhill and drop into the sea. Bill was despatched with the steamer to seek assistance, to ask some other logger to bring a donkey and, with it, drag the sunken machine to land. But no owner would expose his donkey to risk from wind and sea for Carter’s sake. At last old Cap Cohoon came with all his men, bringing blocks and tackle and wire cables. His crowd and Carter’s men between them drew the donkey upright in the water. There it stayed until the time of the “big-run-outs,” when the tides go very low. Carter lit a fire in the furnace one night, got up steam, tied the cable to a tree-stump near the shore, and made the donkey wind itself up to the beach – just ahead of the rising tide. And so he regained his donkey, his fortune. But the machinery was no better for the adventure.

  Another time when Carter was moving camp from Broughton Island down to Gilchrist Bay disaster hovered over him for two whole days. His steamboat, the Ima Hogg, was towing the whole outfit down the channel; towing the raft on which the donkey stood, the bunk-house raft, the cook-house raft, the office raft – a floating village. Heavy blocks, tackle of all description, huge hooks, wire cables, logging tools, boom chains, stores – every single thing that Carter owned (except his timber leases) was on those rafts. Suddenly, in mid-channel, the Ima Hogg lost her propeller!

  There were Carter and his hard-earned we
alth left drifting at random, at the mercy of the tides. Wind might be expected at any moment in that neighbourhood. Wind and sea would shatter his rafts and buildings, would send his donkey and his steamboat to the bottom, after pounding them against the steep, jagged, rocky shores…. I have heard that Carter worked for forty-eight hours fixing things aboard the rafts; and that having done his best, he went to bed and slept. He and his men were found asleep by Bill, who had gone with other men in a rowboat to search the channels for a tug; who had after two days found one; and who had returned with it in time to save the rafts and steamboat from their fates upon the rocks. The weather had kept fine; the tides had merely swept the rafts up and down in mid-channel; and Carter had had one of the most marvellous escapes from ruin that I have ever heard of in the logging country.

  You might think that such an incident would have shaken Carter’s nerve and made him shy of risking his donkey upon sea-journeys. But barely six months later he hazarded his whole wealth upon a venture bristling with risks, the great venture of his life that brought him to the pinnacle of his success. It came about through the agency of a man named Billy Hewlitt.

  About this time, it should be said, logs were going up in price rapidly, and speculators had begun to realise that the forests suitable for logging (by existing methods) were limited in area and might soon be passing into private ownership. There arose, therefore, a great scramble to stake good timber leases. Parties of men explored the coasts everywhere for timber that was worth the staking; and other men in stores and bar-rooms and offices in Vancouver City gambled in leases of the timber that was staked. It was boom-time. Now Billy Hewlitt was a “timber-cruiser” – a man who sought for forest timber, to stake it; and Billy was hard up. For he was a man too hopeful, too enterprising. He had taken up timber leases in the most distant, unheard-of places. Dealers would not buy them – would not even send an expert to inspect them, so far away were they. The rent Billy had to pay the Government per square mile of lease was sucking his pockets dry. Things were thus going badly with him when, one day, he rowed his boat in to Gilchrist Bay and stayed at Carter’s camp, storm-bound. Now Carter, working in his camp, had sniffed the smell of boom-time from afar. He had been cruelly torn in soul. He was making such good money, he was hurrying logs into the sea with such intense desire to profit by high prices, that he dared not leave his camp. Yet his gambling nature longed passionately to take a hand in the fascinating game of staking timber of which he heard such glowing accounts from recent winners. So when Billy Hewlitt spent an evening at the camp, and talked big about the wonderful good timber he had for sale, and backed his words with the logic of two bottles of whisky that he brought up from his boat, Carter’s heart took fire. He ordered Bill to load the steamboat up with fir-bark and get her ready for a cruise next morning. Then he and Billy Hewlitt steamed away among the channels, on a tour of inspection of Billy Hewlitt’s leases….