Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/100

 There’s a first time to everything. Mebbe ye’ll larn a few things after a while.”

“Why don’t you tell him that maple and beech won’t go in a drive any more’n birch will?” indignantly demanded Bub. “You’re the worst man to pick on a feller that I ever see.”

“I’ll tan your jacket some day,” mildly promised Abner, lighting his pipe. Then kindly, “What Bub says is correct, of course; only I s’posed everyone knew it. Very little maple and beech are cut up here and it’s only a doller’n half stumpage.”

“I don’t know what that means,” desperately confessed Stanley.

“It means ye can go in and out all you want and pay only a doller'n half a cord. Stumpage means the value of the timber as it grows,” patiently explained Abner.

“Boy learn when old man,” grunted Charlie. “Carry ’round falls.”

Thus far the four had been paddling through dead water, but now the guide’s keen ears caught the sound of falling water, although it was some time before the voyagers came to the obstruction. It was Stanley’s first experience in making a “carry” and he dimly realized that life in the woods might under