The Rules of the Game

by Stewart Edward White

  XX

  Bob managed to lose some money in his two years of apprenticeship. Thatis to say, the net income from the small operations under his charge wassomewhat less than it would have been under Welton's supervision. Evenat that, the balance sheet showed a profit. This was probably due moreto the perfection of the organization than to any great ability on Bob'spart. Nevertheless, he exercised a real control over the firm'sdestinies, and in one or two instances of sudden crisis threw itsenergies definitely into channels of his own choosing. Especially wasthis true in dealing with the riverman's arch-enemy, the mossback.

  The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut, naturally the landremains. Either the company must pay taxes on it, sell it, or allow itto revert to the state. It may be very good land, but it is encumberedwith old slashing, probably much of it needs drainage, a stubbornsecond-growth of scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the soil,and above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far from therailroad, far even from the crossroad's general store, it is further cutoff by the necessity of traversing atrocious and--in the wetseason--bottomless roads to even the nearest neighbour. Naturally, then,in seeking purchasers for this cut-over land, the Company must addressitself to a certain limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buyhim a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in penniesand gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to clearing the land. Itfollows that he is poverty-stricken, lives frugally and is verytenacious of what property rights he may be able to coax or wring froma hard wilderness. He dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees nofarther than the rail fence he has split out to surround his farm.

  Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer virtues, he becomesby necessity the direct antithesis to the riverman. The purchase of abit of harness, a vehicle, a necessary tool or implement is a matter ofclose economy, long figuring, and much work. Interest on the mortgagemust be paid. And what can a backwoods farm produce worth money? Andwhere can it find a market? Very little; and very far. A man must "playclose to his chest" in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simpleduty of making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means adefect, of course; it means narrowness of vision, conservatism thatcomes close to suspicion, illiberality. When these qualities meet thesometimes foolishly generous and lavish ideas of men trained in thereckless life of the river, almost inevitably are aroused suspicion onone side, contempt on the other and antagonism on both.

  This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But when, as oftenhappens, the mossback's farm extends to the very river bank itself; whenthe legal rights of property clash with the vaguer but no less certainrights of custom, then there is room for endless bickering. When theriver boss steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, onthe merits of the case and with due regard to the sort of man he has todeal with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce, orfight. It may come to be a definite choice between present delay or afuture lawsuit.

  This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to make. Heknew little about law, but he had a very good feeling for the humanside. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of squabbles nourished hissense of loyalty to the company. His woods training was graduallybringing him to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's pointof view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.

  "By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first thought onentering a particularly imposing grove.

  Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his morepractised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the growth of thelimbs, the probable straightness of the grain. His eye almostunconsciously sought the possibilities of location--whether a road couldbe brought in easily, whether the grades could run right. A fine treegave him the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analyticalcontemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as well asbeauty.

  Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a partisantemperament. He played the game fairly, but he played it hard. Gamesimply rules, and any infraction of the rules is unfair and to bepunished. Bob could not be expected to reflect that while rules aregenerally imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in thisgame the rules with which he was acquainted had been made by his side;that perhaps the other fellow might have another set of rules. All hesaw was that the antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible,petty, mean tricks or a succession of dastardly outrages. His loyaltyand anger were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his littlefights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the question meantgetting out the logs, the combination went far toward efficiency. Whenthe drive was down in the spring, Bob looked back on his mossbackcampaign with a little grieved surprise that men could think it worththeir self-respect to try to take such contemptible advantage ofquibbles for the purpose of defeating what was certainly customary andfair, even if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacksthought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad stores.

  In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend absolutely on hissubordinates.

  "How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest of Eight?" hewould ask Tally.

  "About two weeks."

  Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in the snow-stillforest at Eight, trying to apportion in his own mind the twelve days'work. If it did not go at a two weeks' gait, he speedily wanted to knowwhy.

  When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road with expectedregularity, Bob tramped down to the "banks" to see what the trouble was.When he returned, he remarked casually to Jim Tally:

  "I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in Downy."

  "Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because I thought he was analmighty good worker."

  "He is," said Bob; "too good. I found them a little short-handed downthere, and getting discouraged. The sleighs were coming in on themfaster than they could unload. The men couldn't see how they were goingto catch up, so they'd slacked down a little, which made it worse.Powell had his jacket off and was working like the devil with acanthook. He does about the quickest and hardest yank with a canthook Iever saw," mused Bob.

  "Well?" demanded Tally.

  "Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a job he wanted, hecould have it. And I told Downy to take charge. I don't pay a foreman'swages for canthook work; I hire him to keep the men busy, and he surecan't do it if he occupies his time and attention rolling logs."

  "He was doing his best to straighten things out," said Tally.

  "Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob, philosophically.

  But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid the logsbrought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have dreamed of questioningPowell's opinion, although he might later have demanded expertcorroboration from Tally.

  The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in training, bothphysically and spiritually. He realized his mistakes, but they were nowmistakes of judgment rather than of mechanical accuracy, and he did notworry over them once they were behind him.

  When Welton returned from California toward the close of the season, hefound the young man buoyant and happy, deeply absorbed, well liked, andin a fair way to learn something about the business.

  Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed down. Theremaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as rapidly as possible. Bythe end of September the work was over.

  Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while affairs were inpreparation for the westward exodus.

  Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago offices.

  He entered the little outer office he had left so down-heartedly threeyears before. Harvey and his two assistants sat on the high stools infront of the shelf-like desk. The same pictures of record loads, largetrees, mill crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The sameatmosphere of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Throughthe half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg
swung over the arm ofhis revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion with some visitor.

  No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at the threebent backs before him. He remembered the infinite details of the work hehad left, the purchasings of innumerable little things, the regulationof outlays, the balancings of expenditures, the constantly shiftingproperty values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery,transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minuteand vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do withthe old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the questions ofarbitration and privilege. And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly theextent of other interests, concerning which he knew little--investmentinterests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enterpriseswhere the Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer.In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared,docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before him allthese infinite details were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey couldanswer specific questions as to any feature of any one of theseactivities. All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills,the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this silent, dustyroom. The problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came herealso, together with a hundred others. Bob recalled his sight of thehurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when, discouraged anddiscredited, he had left the office three years before. He had thoughtthat individual busy, and had contrasted his activity with thesomnolence of this office. Busy! Why, he, Bob, had over and over againbeen ten times as busy. At the thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and hisassistants turned to the sound.

  "Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man. "I'm certainly gladto see you. You're the only men I ever saw who could be really bang-uprushed and never show it."

  PART TWO