Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/10

2 Luke's blue eyes swung to his son and studied the young face.

"That's it."

"Hum, a flyin' start! And I suppose that's what all you young bucks 're looking for now. You don't want to grub out a foundation; you want that done for you."

The old man drew a long breath.

"We never thought of them things," he said with a hint of bitterness. "The start I got—an' I was younger than you are now—was standin' to my waist in the Saginaw, with th' river gone mad with ice an' logs. That wa'n't much like a flyin' start. It was hard toil, until th' water warmed an' the last log was in the boom. Then it was a summer in th' mills and when the snow came, back to th' woods again. Five—Six? Devil himself knows how many years, we didn't count years then; not lads my age. There was time a-plenty. Harmon put me to head th' drive; then I was woods boss, an' later he made me walkin' boss for five camps. Come next fall he took my savin's, and what they bought give me my chance to buy pine of my own—Pine!" He spoke the word as if it should be capitalized. He sighed.

"From then on it was a fight against debt an' rivers an' men. I'd learned about men an' rivers when I was dryin' my socks around some other man's stove. I had to learn about debt myself, an' that was all. I did learn, an' I made money, I did things that even old Harmon was afraid to do. I took what other men thought was chances an' made big on 'em; but they wasn't chances. I knew that, because I knew about men an' rivers, an' debt—finally."

"You surely—," began John.