The Rules of the Game
Page 59
I
Next morning Bob was set to work with young Jack Pollock stringingbarbed wire fence. He had never done this before. The spools of wireweighed on him heavily. A crowbar thrust through the core made them asort of axle with which to carry it. Thus they walked forward, revolvingthe heavy spool with the greatest care while the strand of wire unwoundbehind them. Every once in a while a coil would kink, or buckle back, orstrike as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs caught attheir clothing, and tore Bob's hands. Jack Pollock seemed familiar withthe idiosyncrasies of the stuff, for he suffered little damage. Indeed,he even found leisure, as Bob soon discovered, to scrutinize hiscompanion with a covert curiosity. In the eyes of the countryside, Bobhad been "fired," and had been forced to take a job rangering. When theentangling strand had been laid along the ground by the newly plantedcedar posts, it became necessary to stretch and fasten it. Here, too,young Jack proved himself a competent teacher. He showed Bob how to geta tremendous leverage with the curve on the back of an ordinary hammerby means of which the wire was held taut until the staples could bedriven home. It was aggravating, nervous, painful work for one notaccustomed to it. Bob's hands were soon cut and bleeding, no matter howgingerly he took hold of the treacherous wire. To all his comments,heated and otherwise, Jack Pollock opposed the mountaineer's determinedinscrutability. He watched Bob's efforts always in silence until thatyoung man had made all his mistakes. Then he spat carefully, and, withquiet patience, did it right.
Bob's sense of humour was tickled. With all his education and hissubsequent wide experience and training, he stood in the position of avery awkward subordinate to this mountain boy. The joke of it was thatthe matter was so entirely his own choice. In the normal relations ofindustry Bob would have been the boss of a hundred activities and twicethat number of men; while Jack Pollock, at best, would be water-boy orfuel-purveyor to a donkey engine. Along in the middle of the morningyoung Elliott passed carrying a crowbar and a spade.
"How'll you trade jobs?" he called.
"What's yours?" asked Bob.
"I'm going to make two cedar posts grow where none grew before," saidElliott.
At noon they knocked off and went back to the ranger camp where theycooked their own meal. Most of the older rangers were afield. Ahalf-dozen of the newcomers and probationers only were there. Elliott,Jack Pollock, two other young mountaineers, Ware and one of the youthsfrom the valley towns had apparently passed the examinations and filledvacancies. All, with the exception of Elliott and this latteryouth--Curtis by name--were old hands at taking care of themselves inthe woods, so matters of their own accord fell into a rough system. Somebuilt the fire, one mixed bread, others busied themselves with the restof the provisions. Elliott rummaged about, and set the rough table withthe battered service. Only Curtis, seated with his back against a tree,appeared too utterly exhausted or ignorant to take hold at anything.Indeed, he hardly spoke to his companions, ate hastily, and disappearedinto his own quarters without offering to help wash the dishes.
This task accomplished, the little group scattered to its afternoonwork. In the necessity of stringing wire without cutting himself toribbons, Bob forgot everything, even the flight of time.
"I reckon it's about quittin' time," Jack observed to him at last.
Bob looked up in surprise. The sun was indeed dropping low.
"We must be about half done," he remarked, measuring the extent of themeadow with his eye.
"Two more wires to string," Pollock reminded him.
The mountaineer threw the grain sack of staples against the last post,tossed his hammer and the hatchet with them.
"Hold on," said Bob. "You aren't going to leave them there?"
"Shore," said Pollock. "We'll have to begin there to-morrow."
But Bob's long training in handling large bodies of men with tools haddeveloped in him an instinct of tool-orderliness.
"Won't do," he stated with something of his old-time authority in histones. "Suppose for some reason we shouldn't get back here to-morrow?That's the way such things get mislaid; and they're valuable."
He picked up the hatchet and the axe. Grumbling something under hisbreath, Pollock shouldered the staples and thrust the hammer in hispocket.
"It isn't as if these things were ours," said Bob, realizing that he hadspoken in an unduly minatory tone.
"That's right," agreed Jack more cheerfully.
In addition to the new men, they found Ross Fletcher and Charley Mortonat the camp. The evening meal was prepared cheerfully and roughly, eatenunder a rather dim lamp. Pipes were lit, and they all began leisurely toclean up. The smoke hung low in the air. One by one the men dropped backinto their rough, homemade chairs, or sprawled out on the floor. Someone lit the fire in the stone chimney, for the mountain air nippedshrewdly after the sun had set. A general relaxing after the day's work,a general cheerfulness, a general dry, chaffing wit took possession ofthem. Two played cribbage under the lamp. One wrote a letter. The restgossiped of the affairs of the service. Only in the corner by himselfyoung Curtis sat. As at noon, he had had nothing to say to any one, andhad not attempted to offer assistance in the communal work. Bobconcluded he must be tired from the unaccustomed labour of the day.Bob's own shoulders ached; and he was in pretty good shape, too.
"What makes me mad," Ross Fletcher's voice suddenly clove the murmur,"is the things we have to do. I was breaking rock on a trail all dayto-day. Think of that! Day labourer's work! State prison work!"
Bob looked up in amazement, as did every one else.
"When a man hires out to be a ranger," Ross went on, "he don't expect tobe a carpenter, or a stone mason; he expects to be a _ranger_!"
Immediately Charley Morton chimed in to the same purpose. Bob listenedwith a rising indignation. This sort of talk was old, but he had notexpected to meet it here; it is the talk of incompetence againstauthority everywhere, of the sea lawyer, the lumberjack, the soldier,the spoiled subordinate in all walks of life. He had taken for granted afiner sort of loyalty here; especially from such men as Ross and CharleyMorton. His face flushed, and he leaned forward to say something. JackPollock jogged his elbow fiercely.
"Hush up!" the young mountaineer whispered; "cain't you see they'retryin' for a rise?"
Bob laughed softly to himself, and relaxed. He should have beenexperienced enough, he told himself, to have recognized so obvious andusual a trick of all campers.
But it was not for Bob, nor his like, that Ross was angling. In fact, hecaught his bite almost immediately. For the first time that day Curtiswoke up and displayed some interest.
"That's what I say!" he cried.
The older man turned to him.
"What they been making you do to-day, son?" asked Ross.
"I've been digging post holes up in those rocks," said Curtisindignantly.
"You don't mean to tell me they put you at that?" demanded Ross; "why,they're supposed to get _Injins_, just cheap dollar-a-day Digger Injins,for that job. And they put you at it!"
"Yes," said Curtis, "they did. I didn't hire out for any such work. Myfather's county clerk down below."
"You don't say!" said Ross.
"Yes, and my hands are all blistered and my back is lame, and----"
But the expectant youngsters could hold in no longer. A roar of laughtercut the speaker short. Curtis stared, bewildered. Ross and CharleyMorton were laughing harder than anybody else. He started to his feet.
"Hold on, son," Ross commanded him, wiping his eyes. "Don't get hostileat a little joke. You'll get used to the work. Of course we all like toride off in the mountains, and do cattle work, and figure on things, anddo administrative work; and we none of us are stuck on construction." Helooked around him at his audience, now quiet and attentive. "But we'vegot to have headquarters, and barns, and houses, and corrals andpastures. Once they're built, they're built and that ends it. But theygot to be built. We're just in hard luck that we happen to be rangersright now. The Service can't hire carpenters for us ve
ry well, way uphere; and _somebody's_ got to do it. It ain't as if we had to do it fora living, all the time. There's a variety. We get all kinds. Rangering'sno snap, any more than any other job. One thing," he ended with a laugh,"we get a chance to do about everything."
The valley youth had dropped sullenly back into the shadows, nor did hereply to this. After a little the men scattered to their quarters, forthey were tired.
Bob and Jack Pollock occupied together one of the older cabins, a roughlittle structure, built mainly of shakes. It contained two bunks, arough table, and two stools constructed of tobacco boxes to which legshad been nailed. As the young men were preparing for bed, Bob remarked:
"Fletcher got his rise, all right. Much obliged for your tip. I nearlybit. But he wasted his talk in my notion. That fellow is hopeless. Rosslabours in vain if he tries to brace him up."
"I reckon Ross knows that," replied Jack, "and I reckon too, he hasmighty few hopes of bracin' up Curtis. I have a kind of notion Ross wasjust usin' that Curtis as a mark to talk at. What he was talkin' _to_was us."