So much for Quin for the time. The Stick Moola, as the Chinook has it, is the theme. It was a beast by the water, that lived on logs. It crawled into the River for logs, and reached out its arms for logs. It desired logs with its sharp teeth. It hungered for Cedar (there's good red cedar of sorts in the ranges, and fine white cedar in the Selkirks), and for Spruce (the fine tree it is!) and Douglas Fir and Hemlock or anything to cut that wasn't true hardwood. It could eat some of the soppy Slope Maple but disdained it. It was greedy and loved lumber. Men cut its dinner afar off and towed it around to the Mill, to the arms, the open arms of the Boom with Paul helping as a kind of great kitchen boy. At early dawn its whistle blew, for in the dark (or near it) the underlings of the Engineer stirred up the furnaces and threw in sawdust and woke the steam. At "half after five" the men turned out, came tumbling in for breakfast in the boarded shack by the Store and fed before they fed the Mill. The first whistle sounded hungry, the second found the men hungry no more, but ready to feed the Beast. In winter it was no joke turning out to begin the day early, but when frost had the Fraser in its arms the Mill shut down and went to sleep. One can't get one's logs out of eighteen inches of ice and then a frozen log cuts hard: it shines when cut. But at this season, it was bright at five and sunny at six. The men came with a summer willingness (that is, with less unwillingness than in frost time, for, remember, it takes work to make work easy and your beginner each day hates the beginning) and they were drawn from all ends of the earth. There were British Canadians: And Americans: from Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Iowa and the Lord knows where. And Spaniards: one a man of Castile, and one from Mexico. There were two Kanucks of the old sort from the East or there was one at any rate. There were Englishmen. Well, there was one Jack Mottram and he a seaman. There was one Swede, Hans Anderssen, in the Mill. There were two Finns outside it. And one Lett (from Lithuania, you understand). There was a Scotchman of course, and, equally of course, he was the Engineer. There was a French Canadian, not by any means of the _habitant_ type but very much there, and he knew English well, but usually cursed in French as was proper. There were two Germans. One was as meek as one German usually is unless he is drunk. But one was not meek. More of him anon. It was an odd crowd, a mixed crowd at meal times in the Mill hash house. To add to everything Chinamen waited: Chinamen cooked. "Now then, Sing, chuck the chow on!" "Sing-Sing (that's where you ought to be), where's the muckamuck?" "Sacré chien----" "Der Teufel----" "By the great Horn Spoon----" "Holy Mackinaw!" "Caramba--Carajo----" "By Crimes----" "Oh! Phit!" "Oh, where's the grub, the hash--the muckamuck, you Canton rats! Kihi, kiti, mukha-hoilo!"