This was the battle of the lumber: for saws kill men and logs, kill them and maim them, oho, but the day was fine and the fight long! Down in the boom the man of the Boom, the man with the long pole, who made the logs swim to their ascent to the Temple, whence they were dragged by the Bull-Wheel, had his work cut out, but worked. If he kept Ginger waiting, Ginger would skip over the skids and come to the open way that led down to the Boom and use sulphurous language. "What the--how the--why the--oh, hell, are we to shut down and go home? Hump yourself, Paul, hump yourself." And much worse if it hadn't been that Paul, a thin silent dark man, was reputed dangerous, and was said to have killed a man in Texas, somewhere in the neighbourhood of El Paso, where not a few pass up the golden stairs on an unholy sudden. But the atmosphere down there is fine, in its way: you shall not believe otherwise, I entreat you. It was towards noon when Mac had Ginger beat or near it. Or if not that, he saw that Mac wasn't to be overcome. The Trimmers, Wong, the Chinee, and Willett, the Englishman, had the thing down fine, for Wong knew his business and Willett was at hard as a keg of nails or a coil of barbed wire. He could claw and sling and work and sweat with any. And still Ginger sent the thing going and again spurted, for Quin came in! "Stand back, clear the track for Mr. Josephus Orange-Blossom," said the nigger, the coon, the "shiny" (not a Sheeny, by the way) of the song. That was the way Quin felt. He felt like someone in particular. Indeed he always did, but now with Jenny at his house, clad in beautiful clothes and looking "a real daisy," he was very proud of himself. That's the way the male has, if the truth be said, men or moose or wapiti, or a lion or a tiger for that matter: or, let us say, a tom-cat. He was full of himself! And all he wanted to do now was to "fire" Pete and get him out of the place, as was natural. Some men would have done it even without excuse, though that is difficult, but George Quin had some natural or unnatural notion of justice and couldn't go so far. He watched Pete with critical half-savage eyes. Was there a glint of pity in them? Perhaps, tilikum, for a man is hard to know. If this was Ginger's day and Ginger's hour when Quin looked in, it was Pete's day too, for he threw his poor outraged Indian soul into labour and did, oh, he did very well. Quin saw that he did, he was pleased with the man, and seeing that he had to pay him, the work pleased him. Pete's face was hard now and his eyes glittered: his muscles stood up: his face and neck were wet: they glistened. He went like a machine: and never made a mistake. He climbed a five-foot log on the carriage close to the teeth of the saw (the sawdust was in his hair and it looked white and woolly) like a cougar, at one bound. He worked up Skookum Charlie in like manner and made the Siwash like it.