For a moment Thorpe could not make out what had happened.This turmoil was so different from the dead quiet of desertion he had expected, that he was unable to gather his faculties.All about him were familiar faces upturned to his own.He distinguished the broad, square shoulders of Scotty Parsons, Jack Hyland, Kerlie, Bryan Moloney; Ellis grinned at him from the press; Billy Camp, the fat and shiny drive cook; Mason, the foreman of the mill; over beyond howled Solly, the tug captain, Rollway Charley, Shorty, the chore-boy; everywhere were features that he knew.As his dimming eyes travelled here and there, one by one the Fighting Forty, the best crew of men ever gathered in the northland, impressed themselves on his consciousness.Saginaw birlers, Flat River drivers, woodsmen from the forests of Lower Canada, bully boys out of the Muskegon waters, peavey men from Au Sable, white-water dare-devils from the rapids of the Menominee--all were there to do him honor, him in whom they had learned to see the supreme qualities of their calling.On the outskirts sauntered the tall form of Tim Shearer, a straw peeping from beneath his flax-white mustache, his eyes glimmering under his flax-white eyebrows.He did not evidence as much excitement as the others, but the very bearing of the man expressed the deepest satisfaction.Perhaps he remembered that zero morning so many years before when he had watched the thinly-clad, shivering chore-boy set his face for the first time towards the dark forest.
Big Junko and Anderson deposited their burden on the raised platform of the office steps.Thorpe turned and fronted the crowd.
At once pandemonium broke loose, as though the previous performance had been nothing but a low-voiced rehearsal.
The men looked upon their leader and gave voice to the enthusiasm that was in them.He stood alone there, straight and tall, the muscles of his brown face set to hide his emotion, his head thrust back proudly, the lines of his strong figure tense with power,--the glorification in finer matter of the hardy, reliant men who did him honor.