They dressed and came out, to find Mrs. Hoover hard at work in the kitchen, preparing a morning meal of salt mackerel, bread and butter, and coffee. They washed up outside as directed, and then sat down. Now Dale and Owen had had many poor meals at one place and another, but nothing which was worse than this. The fish was old and tough, the bread stale, the butter strong, and the coffee of the rank sort, worth twelve or fourteen cents a pound. As a dainty, there were several slices of gingerbread, but they looked so old and dried-up that neither of the young lumbermen cared to touch them. "You don't seem to be hungry," remarked Mrs. Hoover, as she watched them dallying with the food. "Not as hungry as I might be," answered Dale. "You want to eat up. It makes a boy good and strong, and fit for a proper day's work." The breakfast was soon over, and then John Hoover said he would take them out, introduce them to some of the men, and show them what they were to do. Unobserved, they slipped into their room, and put some crackers in their pockets, with some chipped beef in a paper, to eat when they got the chance, for the breakfast furnished by Mrs. Hoover had by no means satisfied them. Inside of an hour they were hard at work, Owen as foreman of a gang of twelve men, including Dale. They learned that the gang had originally consisted of twenty hands, but eight men had left, to seek employment elsewhere. "And I am going next Saturday," said the man who gave out this information. "My time's up, and I don't want any more of this camp." The men worked hard, and Owen soon learned that he was expected to not only direct them, but do as much cutting as anybody. From time to time John Hoover appeared, going from one gang of the camp to another, and urging everybody to "work up there," and finding great fault if the trees did not come down, or were not moved, as speedily as he expected. And when one of the hands hurt his foot, he would not allow the fellow to knock off and have the hurt attended to, but told him to wait until the sawmill whistle blew for the noon meal. "That's your time," he said. "This time is mine, and I want you to work." "That was hard-hearted," said Dale, when he and Owen were alone. "You are right," answered Owen. "He's the meanest man I ever met, and I'm sorry he is an uncle of mine." By the time night came the young lumbermen were more than ready to quit. John Hoover had proved a regular slave driver, and neither wondered that his men were deserting him before the season was at an end. "About two months of this would use me up," said Dale. "I never felt so tired from a single day's work in my life." "It's his continual nagging that does it, Dale. If he wouldn't be at the men all the time they might do every bit as much, and feel a good deal better over it. As it is they are surly, and they won't do a hand's turn more than they have to." And Owen was right.