The truth was that everyone was waiting. They loafed with their hands but their minds were quick enough. Tenas Billy of the Lath Mill every now and again climbed up the chute to see if bloodshed was imminent. Shorty Gibbs, the Shingle Sawyer, did the same. The very Chinamen sorting flooring underneath bobbed up like Jacks out of Boxes. Only Pete never raised his head from his work. When he drove a steel dog into a log he did it with vim and vice. He smashed Quin's big head every stroke. Quin's head was a wedge under the maul. And it was nine o'clock. Before ten Quin always came into the Mill and stood as it were on deck, looking at his crew as they sailed the Mill through forests, making barren the lives of the green hills fronting the Straits. As ten drew on the work grew more slack and men's minds grew intense. But a big log was on the carriage, one nigh six foot in diameter. The slab came off, and Pete and Skookum Charlie handled it. Ginger set her for a fifteen-inch cant and sent her at it. Just as the log obscured the doorway Quin came in and no one saw him but Skookum. Pete drove a wedge, and reached out his hand for a loose one. Then he saw Quin. As he saw him he forgot his work, and the saw nipped a little and squealed uneasily. Ginger threw up his angry head and stopped her and saw that Pete saw Quin. "Here's trouble," said the men. The Pony Saw stopped dead. The Trimmers ran back into their casings. There was silence. The Lath Mill stayed and the Shingle Saw and men's heads came up from below. They heard Quin speak. "Get off that log," said Quin. Pete dropped off on the side away from Quin, as quick as a mud-turtle. As he fell upon his feet he grabbed a pickareen lying on the skids and ran round the end of the carriage. "Look out, Sir," yelled Ginger. A dozen men made a rush. Long Mac came over two skids at a time. The only man who was near enough to do anything was Skookum Charlie, but he feared Pete and had no mind for any trouble. He was safer on the top of the log. Ginger took a heavy spanner in his hand and went round the other end of the log. He was in time to see Pete rushing at Quin, who had nothing in his hands. Quin was the kind of man who wouldn't have, so much can be said for him. Now Quin was standing at the opening of the great side chute, down which big cants and bents for bridge-work were thrown sideways. It was a forty-foot opening in the Mill's wall. It was smooth, greasy, sharply inclined. At the foot of it were some heavy eighteen-foot bents for bridge repairing. "Ah," said Pete. It seemed to Quin that Pete came quick and that the other men who were running came very slow. Perhaps they did, for Pete was as quick on his feet as any cat or cougar. He weighed a hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and light bone. Quin weighed two hundred at the least. He wasn't quick till he was hot. But Pete's quickness, though it caught Quin, yet saved him.