Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/22



youth in the road paused and listened intently. He was tall and thin, almost emaciated in appearance, and stood with shoulders stooped as if weary. But it was not fatigue that caused him to stay his steps and cock an ear curiously. What he had heard was the whine of a cross-cut saw, eating its way through a log. But all the wood sounds were new to him and as yet he could interpret none of them. Again the saw voiced a shrill complaint tinged with a note of anger at encountering a stubborn knot, and the youth left the rough road and awkwardly made his way through the alders.

He beheld two men operating the saw, only to his unpractised eye it seemed as if the smaller of the two were trying to prevent the other from obtaining possession of the notched steel blade.

Instantly his sympathy was aroused; he resented the unequal odds.