"No, this load is going up the river," was the answer. "May I ask who is going to take it and where it is bound?" "It's going up to the Paxton camp. Old Joel Winthrop and a couple of other men are going to take it up. Paxton is going to start in early this fall, so we're rushing the stuff up to him." "How many hands does he employ?" "About a hundred or more. Want a job?" [Illustration: "Want a job, eh?"] "Yes." "Then you'd better see Winthrop about it. He's looking for likely men." "Where can I find him?" "Down to the lake. He's got a bateau he calls the _Lily_--name is daubed on the stern. You can't miss him." "Thanks; we'll try him," answered Dale, and set off, followed by Owen. It was not a difficult task to locate Joel Winthrop, an aged woodsman, with whitish hair and beard, and shrewd gray eyes. He had been patching up a leak in his clumsy craft, and he listened to Dale's application while holding a pitch pot in one hand and a brush in the other. "Want a job, eh?" he said, looking them over. "What can you do?" "Almost anything but cook," answered Owen. "Might do that, but I shouldn't care to risk it." "Guess you wouldn't--not up to our camp," laughed Joel Winthrop. "Had a cook last year who burnt the beans an' they tuk him down to the river, chopped a hole in the ice, an' soused him under three times. He never burnt a bean after thet, so long as he stayed." "We'd like to go as choppers or swampers," said Dale. A chopper is one who fells trees, while a swamper is one who cuts down brushwood and makes a road from the forest to where the logs are piled for shipment in the spring. "An' what wages are you expectin'?" "Regular wages," said Dale boldly. "We expect to do regular men's work." "Got a recommend?" "Several of them," and Dale handed over the letters he had received from Larson, Odell, and his other employers. Owen also exhibited several recommendations he possessed. "I see ye don't drink," said Joel Winthrop. "Glad to hear o' that. Drink is the curse of a lumber camp, you know that well as I do. The question is, can ye both stand the work fer a whole season?" "If we can't you'll not have to keep us," answered Owen. "Ours is a mighty cold camp, I can tell ye that." "We are used to roughing it," said Dale. "I was brought up that way from a baby." "We aint payin' young fellows like you more'n twenty dollars a month an' found." "How many months work?" asked Owen. "Six months, an' maybe seven or eight." "I'll accept," said Owen. "So will I," said Dale. The old lumberman then said he knew John Larson fairly well and that a recommendation from such a person must be all right. "We're going to start up the lake this afternoon," said he. "So if ye mean business be on hand at two o'clock sharp. I'll give ye free passage, an' you help work the boat and carry stuff around the falls."