White came running and expected Simmons to run. But Simmons' face was red where White's was white. He snatched a pickareen from the nearest Chinaman, and a pickareen is a useful weapon, a sharp half pick, and six inches of a pick. "You----" grinned Simmons, "you----" And White stayed. "Yah!" said Simmons, with lips set back. And Ginger White retreated. "Here, sonny, take your pick," said the Wedger-Off that had been to the Chinaman; "fat chops don't care to face it." He turned to Quin. "Shall I go to the office, Mr. Quin?" "Aye," said Quin carelessly enough. He beckoned to Pete, whose eyes brightened. He came lightly. "You'll take the job, Pete?" Would he take it? "Nawitka," said Pete, "yes, indeed, Sir." Nawitka! He took the job and grinned with Skookum, who fetched the maul and gave him the wedges with all the pleasure in the world, for Skookum had no ambition to be Chief Wedger-Off. White came forward, dabbing at a monstrous tender nose with a rag. "I've seen you at the Inlet?" he asked. "Yes," said Pete, "at Granville." "You'll do," said White. He dabbed at his huge proboscis and went back to the lever. Pete leapt upon the log and drove in the first wedge. "Hyas, hyas! Oh, she goes!" She went and the day went, and Pete worked like fire on a dry Spruce yet unfelled. He leapt on and off and handled things with skill. But when he looked at White's growing nose he grinned. Simmons had done that. "If he ever talk to me that away," said Pete, "I'll give him chikamin, give him steel!" He didn't love White, at the first glance he knew that. But it was good to be at work again, very good. At twelve o'clock the whistle called "Hash," and the engine was shut down. The Saws slackened their steady scream, they grew feeble, they whined, they whirred, they nearly stopped, they stayed in silence. Men leapt across the skids: they slid down the Chutes: they clattered down the stairs: they opened their mouths and could hear their voices. They talked of White (he grubbed at home, being married), and of Simmons and of Pete (he being a Siwash, even if not married, would not have grubbed in the Hash House) and heard the story. On the whole they were sorry that Simmons had not driven the pickareen through White. However, his nose was a satisfaction. "Like a beet----" "A pumpkin----" "A water melon----" A prodigious nose after contact with the Maul Handle. "I knew Mr. White," said Jenny to Pete, "Mr. White bad man, hyu mesahchie." "Sling out the muckamuck," said Pete calmly. He fell to with infinite satisfaction, and Jenny came and sat on his knee as he smoked his pipe. "She is really devilish pretty," said Quin, who had no one to sit on his knee. The whistle suddenly said that it was half after twelve and that it would be infinitely obliged if all the working gentlemen from everywhere would kindly step up in a goldarned hurry and turn to.