"That looks like too good a stick to be wasted, doesn't it, McLean?" he
asked.
Before McLean could answer the boy spat gravely into a pile of sawdust,
his piping voice rising above the shrill scream of the saws.
"She's holler," he stated succintly. "Dry rotten above the stub!"
And when Allison raised his brows, interrogatively, McLean dropped one
hand upon the boy's shoulder, a bit of pride in the gesture.
"Holler she is," he agreed, and he added: "An' I'll be afther knowin'
where to find a riverman av the old school, I'm thinkin', some day whin
the need arises!"
A man came hunting for McLean at that moment with news that the tram
which carried the logs up from the basin to the saws needed his
attention. They followed him out, Steve hard at his heels, and Barbara
Allison, lips pouted, tight to her father's side. After a brief
examination of the trouble McLean gave a half dozen hurried orders;
then turned to the boy beside him and jerked one thumb over his
shoulder.
"Run down to the smithy shop, lad," he directed, "an' tell the smith
that I'll be wantin' a strip av str-rap iron, two feet in lingth, av
quarter inch stuff--and three-quarters av an inch wide."
The boy was off like a deer and back again in a twinkling,
empty-handed, but with an astounding bit of news.
"The blacksmith says he ain't got no--no iron three-quarters of an inch
wide," he said, and the words were broken by his panting breaths.
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