Their recent
tiff seemed to be forgotten.
Some of the choppers had already gone on ahead to the part of the
tract where the marked trees were being felled. Now the pluck,
pluck, pluck of the axe blows laid against the forest monarchs,
reached the girl's ears. She thought the flat stuttering sound
of the axes said "pluck" very plainly, and that that was just the
word they should say.
"For it does take lots of pluck to do work of this kind," Nan
confided to her uncle, who walked up and down on the porch
smoking an after-breakfast pipe.
"Yes. No softies allowed on the job," said he, cheerfully.
"Some of the boys may be rough and hard nuts to crack; but it is
necessary to have just such boys or we couldn't get out the
timber."
"But they want to fight so much!" gasped Nan.
"Sho!" said her uncle, slowly. "It's mostly talk. They feel the
itch for hard work and hard play, that's all. You take lively,
full-muscled animals, and they are always bucking and quarreling
trying to see which one is the best. Take two young, fat
steers they'll lock horns at the drop of a hat. It's animal
spirits, Nan. They feel that they've got to let off steam.
Where muscle and pluck count for what they do in the lumber
camps, there's bound to be more or less ructions.
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