Half an hour later she sat down with her brother at one end of a table that was but a long bench covered with oilcloth. Chairs there were none. A narrow movable bench on each side of the fixed table furnished seating capacity for twenty men, provided none objected to an occasional nudging from his neighbor's elbow. The dishes, different from any she had ever eaten from, were of enormously thick porcelain, dead white, variously chipped and cracked with fine seams. But the food, if plain, was of excellent quality, tastily cooked. She discovered herself with an appetite wholly independent of silver and cut glass and linen. The tin spoons and steel knives and forks harrowed her aesthetic sense without impairing her ability to satisfy hunger. They had the dining room to themselves. Through a single shiplap partition rose a rumble of masculine talk, where the logging crew loafed in their bunkhouse. The cook served them without any ceremony, putting everything on the table at once,--soup, meat, vegetables, a bread pudding for dessert, coffee in a tall tin pot. Benton introduced him to his sister. He withdrew hastily to the kitchen, and they saw no more of him. "Charlie," the girl said plaintively, when the man had closed the door behind him, "I don't quite fathom your social customs out here. Is one supposed to know everybody that one encounters?" "Just about," he grinned. "Loggers, Siwashes, and the natives in general. Can't very well help it, Sis. There's so few people in this neck of the woods that nobody can afford to be exclusive,--at least, nobody who lives here any length of time. You can't tell when you may have to call on your neighbor or the fellow working for you in a matter of life and death almost. A man couldn't possibly maintain the same attitude toward a bunch of loggers working under him that would be considered proper back where we came from. Take me, for instance, and my case is no different from any man operating on a moderate scale out here. I'd get the reputation of being swell-headed, and they'd put me in the hole at every turn. They wouldn't care what they did or how it was done. Ten to one I couldn't keep a capable working crew three weeks on end. On the other hand, take a bunch of loggers on a pay roll working for a man that meets them on an equal footing--why, they'll go to hell and back again for him. They're as loyal as soldiers to the flag. They're a mighty self-sufficient, independent lot, these lumberjacks, and that goes for most everybody knocking about in this country,--loggers, prospectors, miners, settlers, and all. If you're what they term 'all right,' you can do anything, and they'll back you up. If you go to putting on airs and trying to assert yourself as a superior being, they'll go out of their way to hand you packages of trouble." "I see," she observed thoughtfully. "One's compelled by circumstances to practice democracy." "Something like that," he responded carelessly and went on eating his supper.