Oh, but it was a good sight and the roar was filling. Pete's eyes sparkled: he loved it: loved the sound and the song and itched to be again on the log with the maul. Those who speak of sport--why, let them fell a giant, drive it, boom it, drag it and cut it up! To brittle a monarch of the forest and disembowel it of its boards: its scantlings: its squared lumber: posts, fences, shingles, laths, pickets, Oho! Pete knew how great it was. "Oh, klahya, tilikum, my friend the log." He spoke not now to Skookum, but strong Charlie, and lazy Charlie, understood him. At one hour of the day even the lazy surrendered to the charm of the song of the work and did their damnedest. So Skookum understood that his old friend (both being Sitcum Siwashes, or half breeds) loved the Mill and the work at that hour. White, the chief Sawyer, the Red Beard, was at his lever and set the carriage for a ten inch Cant when the slabs were off and hurtling to the lath mill. Ginger White no one loved, least of all his Wedger-Off, Simmons (a man, like silent Paul of the Boom, from nowhere), for he too was gingery, with a gleam of the sun in his beard and a spice of the devil in his temper. He was the fierce red type, while White was red but lymphatic, and also a little fat under the jowl and a liar by nature, furtive, not very brave but skilled in Saws. Simmons took a wedge and his maul and waited for the log to come to him. The carriage moved: the saws bit: the sawdust squirted and spurted in a curve with strips of wood which were not sawdust, for they use big gauges in the soft wood of the West and would stare at a sixteenth gauge, to say nothing of less. Now Simmons leapt upon the log and drove in the wedge to keep the closing cut open for the saws. The lengthening cut gave opening for another and another. Simmons and Skookum played swiftly, interchanging the loosened wedge and setting it to loosen the last driven in. The Wedgers-Off on the six-foot log were like birds of prey upon a beast. "Oh, give it her," yelled Skookum. It was a way of his to yell. But Ginger drove her fast, hoping to hear the saws nip a little and alter their note so that he could complain. Simmons knew it, Skookum knew it. But they played quickly and sure. They leapt before the end of the cut and helped to guide the falling cant upon the skids. Chinamen helped them. The Cant thundered on the skids and was thrust sideways over to the Pony Saw. "Kloshe kahkwa," said Pete. "That's good!"