"Jack can beat our time, and this
bleeding must be stopped quick."
The tender veered in from her course at the signal. Fyfe himself was at
the wheel. Five minutes effected a complete arrangement, and the
_Panther_ drew off with the drunken cook singing atop of the pilot
house, and Renfrew comfortable in her cabin, and Jack Fyfe's promise to
see him properly installed and attended in the local hospital at Roaring
Springs.
Benton heaved a sigh of relief and turned to his sister.
"Still mad, Stell?" he asked placatingly and put his arm over her
shoulders.
"Of course not," she responded instantly to this kindlier phase. "Ugh!
Your hands are all bloody, Charlie."
"That's so, but it'll wash off," he replied. "Well, we're shy a good
woodsman and a cook, and I'll miss 'em both. But it might be worse.
Here's where you go to bat, Stella. Get on your apron and lend me a hand
in the kitchen, like a good girl. We have to eat, no matter what
happens."
CHAPTER VI
THE DIGNITY (?) OF TOIL
By such imperceptible degrees that she was scarce aware of it, Stella
took her place as a cog in her brother's logging machine, a unit in the
human mechanism which he operated skilfully and relentlessly at top
speed to achieve his desired end--one million feet of timber in
boomsticks by September the first.
From the evening that she stepped into the breach created by a drunken
cook, the kitchen burden settled steadily upon her shoulders. For a week
Benton daily expected and spoke of the arrival of a new cook.
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