"D--n ye for cowards!" yelled the Honorable Pulaski, viciously flinging the ash sled-stake after them.
"Oh, but they're not cowards!" cried Larry. In his bushman's soul he realized that even now a chance taunt, a random prick of word, might start the fight afresh. "Every man-jack there is known to me of old, and the good, brave boys they are! But your money ain't greasy enough, Mr. Britt, to make good men as them fight to take away a comrade's man-rights."
The "Busters" nodded affirmation and kept on. One man stepped back and hallooed: "Right ye are, Larry Gorman! And when ye try to get your Enchanted logs first through the Hulling Machine next spring, ye'll find that we're the kind of gristle that can't be chawed. That'll be man's business, and no Teamster Tommy Eye to stub a toe over!"
There was a grin on the man's face, but none the less it was a challenge, and Larry accepted it.
"Sure, and we'll be there!" he called. "We'll be there with hair a foot long, pick-pole[3] in one hand, peavy-stick[4] in the other, ready for a game of jack-straws in the white water and a fist-jig on the bank!"
[Footnote 3: An ashen pole, shod with an iron screw-point.]
[Footnote 4: The Maine variety of the cant-dog, illustrated on the cover.]
"And will ye write it all into a song, Larry Gorman?"
And roaring a good-natured cheer over their shoulders, the "Busters" filed away into the mouth of Pogey Notch.
"You may as well move, boys," ordered Rodburd Ide. "This business here isn't swampin' yards nor buildin' camps!"
The men for Enchanted cheerfully shouldered dunnage-sacks, and in their turn set off up the Notch.
"Here's Tommy Eye's bill of his time, Mr. Britt," said Gorman, holding out a crumpled paper to the choking tyrant. Tommy himself had prudently departed, bulwarked by his new comrades.
"I'll not pay it!" blustered Britt. "He broke the contract!"
"No more does he want you to pay it," replied Larry, serenely, speaking in behalf of the amiable prodigal. "He says to credit it on that one drink of whiskey he took out of your bottle, and when he earns more money workin' for honest men he'll pay ye the rest."
He tore the paper across and across, snapped the bits in Britt's face, turned, and followed the crew.