An angry face appeared over his shoulder in the door of the smoker, two big hands clutched his throat, jammed the melody into a hoarse squawk, and then the songster went tumbling backward into the car and out of sight.
Almost immediately his muscular suppressor crossed the platform and came into the coach, snatching the little round hat off the back of his head as he entered. Wade knew him. His employer had introduced them at the junction as two who should know each other. It was Colin MacLeod, the "boss."
"And Prince Edward's Island never turned out a smarter," the Honorable Pulaski had said, not deigning to make an aside of his remarks. "Landed four million of the Umcolcus logs on the ice this spring, busted her with dynamite, let hell and the drive loose, licked every pulp-wood boss that got in his way with their kindlings, and was the first into Pea Cove boom with every log on the scale-sheet. That's this boy!" And he fondled the young giant's arm like a butcher appraising beef.
Wade paid little attention to him then. With his ridged jaw muscles, his hard gray eyes, and the bullying cock of his head, he was only a part of the ruthlessness of the woods.
But now, as he came up the car aisle, his face flushed, his eyes eager, his embarrassment wrinkling on his forehead, Wade looked at him with the sudden thought that the boss of the "Busters" was merely a boy, after all.
"It was only Tommy Eye, Miss Nina," explained MacLeod, his voice trembling, his abashed admiration shining in his face. "He's just out of jail, you know." He looked at Wade and then at the old man of the grizzled whiskers, and raised his voice as though to gain a self-possession he did not feel. "Tommy always gets into jail after the drive is down. He's spent seventeen summers in jail, and is proud of it."
"But there ain't no better teamster ever pushed on the webbin's," said the old man, admiration for all the folks of the woods still unflagging.
The girl did not display the same enthusiasm, either for Tommy Eye's mishaps or for the bashful giant who stood shifting from foot to foot beside her seat.
"Crews going into the woods ought to be nailed up in box-cars, that's what father says. And when they go through Castonia settlement I wish they were in crates, the same as they ship bears."