And the hash was slung and the slingers thereof hurried. The hash-eaters talked English (of sorts), American (North and South), Swinsk, Norsk, Dansk, true Spanish (with the lisp), Mexican Spanish (without it and soft as silk). They interlarded the talk (which was of mills, lumber, and politics, and Indian klootchmen, and the weather, and of horses and dogs and the devil and all) with scraps of Chinook. And that is English and French and different sorts of Indian fried and boiled and pounded and fricasseed and served up in one jargon. It's a complete and God-forsaken tongue but Easy, and Easiness goes. It is as it were brother to Pidgin English. The grub was "muckamuck" and luckily was "kloshe." But as it happened (it usually did happen) there was salmon. "Cultus slush, I call it," said one. "Cultu muckamuck." "That's Ned Quin's nickname up to Kamloops," said Jack Mottram. "Our man's brother?" "Him," said Jack. He picked his teeth with a fork and Long Mac eyed him with disgust. "I know Ned, he's tough." But Jack was tough himself: he had been salted in all the seas and sun-dried on all the beaches of the rough round world. He made short stays everywhere: passages not voyages: skippers were glad to give him his discharge, for after sixty days at sea he sickened for the land and became hot cargo. "Oh, I'm tough enough," he would prelude some yarn with. Now Shorty Gibbs spoke, he of the Shingle Mill. Lately the Shingle Mill had annexed half a thumb of his as it screamed out to him. "He's a son of a----" He completed the sentence in the approved round manner. They all admitted that Quin the Manager was Tough, but that Ned Quin of Kamloops was tougher admitted not a doubt. They swept the food from the table. Just as the logs were divided by the Saws and fell into various Chutes and disappeared, so the food went here. Most of the men ate like hogs (the better Americans least like): they yaffled, they gurgled, they sweated over the chewing and got over it. "I'm piled up," said Tenas Billy of the Lath Mill. He too was minus a thumb and the tops of some fingers, tribute to the saw. Especially do the Shingle Saw and Lath Saw take such petty toll. When the Hoes ask tribute or the Pony Saw it's a different matter. "I'm piled up." As to being piled up, that was a Sawmill metaphor. "You've put the tightener on your belt!" To be sure they all had. But as to piling up, when things were booming and men were warm and feeling the work good, and when nothing went wrong with the belts or with the Engines and the logs came easy and sweet, it was the ambition of the Chief Sawyer to pile up the Skids of Long Mac who had the Pony Saw. Then it was Long Mac's desire to pile up the skids for the Chinee trimmer (not run by a Chinee) and it was that Trimmer's desire to pile up the man opposing. To be piled up is to have bested one's own teeth, when it comes to chewing. "My skids are full," said the metaphorical.