A SUMMONS sent forth by Echford Flagg, the last of the giants among the independent operators on the Noda waters, had made that day in early April a sort of gala affair in the village of Adonia.

Men by the hundred were crowded into the one street, which stretched along the river bank in front of the tavern and the stores. The narrow-gauge train from downcountry had brought many. Others had come from the woods in sledges; there was still plenty of snow in the woods; but in the village the runner irons squalled over the bare spots. Men came trudging from the mouths of trails and tote roads, their duffel in meal bags slung from their shoulders.

An observer, looking on, listening, would have discovered that a suppressed spirit of jest kept flashing across the earnestness of the occasion—grins lighting up sharp retort—just as the radiant sunshine of the day shuttled through the intermittent snow squalls which dusted the shoulders of the thronging men.

There was a dominant monotone above all the talk and the cackle of laughter; ears were dinned everlastingly by the thunder of the cataract near the village. The Noda waters break their winter fetters first of all at Adonia, where the river leaps from the cliffs into the whirlpool. The roar of the falls is a trumpet call for the starting of the drive, though the upper waters may be ice-bound; but when the falls shout their call the rivermen must be started north toward the landings where logs are piled on the rotting ice.

On that day Echford Flagg proposed to pick his crew.

To be sure, he had picked a crew every year in early April, but the hiring had been done in a more or less matter-of-fact manner.

This year the summons had a suggestion of portent. It went by word o’ mouth from man to man all through the north country. It hinted at an opportunity for adventure outside of wading in shallows, carding ledges of jillpoked logs, and the bone-breaking toil of rolling timber and riffling jams.

“Eck Flagg wants roosters this year,” had gone the word. Spurred roosters! Fighting gamecocks! One spur for a log and one for any hellion who should get in the way of an honest drive!

The talk among the men who shouldered one another in the street and swapped grins and gab revealed that not all of them were ready to volunteer as spurred roosters, ready for hazard. It was evident that there were as many mere spectators as there were actual candidates for jobs. Above all, ardent curiosity prevailed; in that region where events marshaled themselves slowly and sparsely men did not balk at riding or hoofing it a dozen miles or more in order to get first-hand information in regard to anything novel or worth while.

Finally, Echford Flagg stalked down the hill from his big, square house—its weather-beaten grayness matching the ledges on which it was propped. His beard and hair were the color of the ledges, too, and the seams in his hard face were like ledgerifts. His belted jacket was stone gray and it was buttoned over the torso of a man who was six feet tall—yes, a bit over that height. He was straight and vigorous in spite of the age revealed in his features. He carried a cant dog over his shoulder; the swinging iron tongue of it clanked as he strode along.

The handle of the tool was curiously striped with colors. There was no other cant dog like it all up and down the Noda waters. Carved into the wood was an emblem—it was the totem mark of the Tarratines—the sign manual by Sachem Nicola of Flagg’s honorary membership in the tribe.

He was no popular hero in that section—it was easy to gather that much from the expressions of the men who looked at him when he marched through the crowd. There was no acclaim, only a grunt or a sniff. Too many of them had worked for him in days past and had felt the weight of his broad palm and the slash of his sharp tongue. Ward Latisan had truthfully expressed the Noda’s opinion of Flagg in the talk with the girl in the cafeteria.

The unroofed porch of the tavern served Flagg for a rostrum that day. He mounted the porch, faced the throng, and drove down the steel-shod point of his cant dog into the splintering wood, swinging the staff out to arm’s length.

“I’m hiring a driving crew to-day,” he shouted. “As for men——”

“Here’s one,” broke in a volunteer, thrusting himself forward with scant respect for the orator’s exordium.

Flagg bent forward and peered down into the face uplifted hopefully.

“I said men,” he roared. “You’re Larsen. You went to sleep on the Lotan ledges——”

“I had been there alone for forty-eight hours, carding ’em, and the logs——”

“You went to sleep on the Lotan ledges, I say, and let a jam get tangled, and it took twenty of my men two days to pull the snarl loose.”

The man was close to the edge of the porch. Flagg set his boot suddenly against Larsen’s breast and drove him away so viciously that the victim fell on his back among the legs of the crowd, ten feet from the porch.

“I never forget and I never forgive—and that’s the word that’s out about me, and I’m proud of the reputation,” declared Flagg. “I don’t propose to smirch it at this late day. And now I look into your faces and realize that what I have just said and done adds to the bunch that has come here to-day to listen and look on instead of hiring out. I’m glad I’m sorting out the sheep from the goats at the outset. It happens that I want goats—goats with horns and sharp hoofs and——”

“The word was you wanted roosters,” cried somebody from the outskirts of the crowd.

There was laughter, seeking even that small excuse for vent; the hilarity was as expressive as a viva voce vote, and its volume suggested that there were more against Flagg than there were for him.He did not lower his crest. “You all know what is happening this season. You know why I have sent out for men. The Three C’s crowd has started stealing from my crews. I want men who have a grudge against the Three C’s. I want men who will fight the Three C’s. Rufe Craig proposes to steal the Noda as he has stolen the Tomah. He has been making his brags of what he’ll do to me. He won’t do it, even if I have to make a special trip to hell and hire a crew of devils. Now let me test out this crowd.” He was searching faces with a keen gaze. “All proper men to the front ranks! Let me look at you!”

A slow movement began in the throng; men were pushing forward.

“Lively on the foot!” yelled Flagg. “I’m standing here judging you by the way you break this jam of the jillpokes. Walk over the cowards, you real men! Come on, you bully chaps! Come running! Hi yoop! Underfoot with ’em!”

He swung his cant dog and kept on adjuring.

The real adventurers, the excitement seekers, the scrappers, drove into the press of those who were in the way. The field became a scene of riot. The bullies were called on to qualify under the eyes of the master. There were fisticuffs aplenty because husky men who might not care to enlist with old Eck Flagg were sufficiently muscular and ugly to strike back at attackers who stamped on their feet and drove fists into their backs.

Flagg, on the porch, followed all phases of the scattered conflict, estimated men by the manner in which they went at what he had set them to do, and he surveyed them with favor when they crowded close to the edge of his rostrum, dwelling with particular interest on the faces which especially revealed that they had been up against the real thing in the way of a fight. Behind and around the gladiators who had won to the porch pressed the cordon of malcontents who cursed and threatened.

“Much obliged for favor of prompt reply to mine of day and date,” said Flagg, with his grim humor. He drove his cant-dog point into the floor of the porch and left the tool waggling slowly to and fro. He leaped down among the men. He did not waste time with words. He went among them, gripping their arms to estimate the biceps, holding them off at arm’s length to judge their height and weight. He also looked at their teeth, rolling up their lips, horse-trader fashion. The drive provender did not consist of tender tidbits; a river jack must be able to chew tough meat, and the man in the wilderness with a toothache would have poor grit for work in bone-chilling water after a sleepless night.

Flagg carried a piece of chalk in his right hand. When he accepted a man he autographed the initials “E F” on the back of the fellow’s shirt or jacket, in characteristic handwriting. “Show your back as you go north,” he proclaimed for the benefit of the strangers to his custom. “My initials are good for stage team, tote team, lodging, and meals—the bills are sent to Flagg. The sooner you start the sooner you’ll get to headwaters.”

A big chap followed at Flagg’s back as the despot moved among the men. He was Ben Kyle, Flagg’s drive boss, the first mate of the Flagg ship of state. He was writing down the names of the men as they were hired. Occasionally the master called on the mate to give in an opinion when a candidate ran close to the line between acceptance or rejection.

Flagg began to show good humor beyond his usual wont. He was finding men who suited him. Many of them growled anathema against the Three C’s. They had worked for that corporation. They had been obliged to herd with roughscuff from the city employment agencies, unskilled men who were all the time coming and going and were mostly underfoot when they were on the job. One humorist averred that the Three C’s had three complete sets of crews—one working, one coming in, and one going out.

Kyle began to loosen up and copy some of Flagg’s good humor.

He encouraged the wag who had described the three shifts to say more about the Comas crews; he had some witticisms of his own to offer.

And so it came to pass that when he tackled one hulking and bashful sort of a chap who stuttered, Kyle was in most excellent mood to have a little fun with a butt. Even Echford Flagg ceased operations to listen, for the humor seemed to be sharp-edged enough to suit his satiric taste.

“You say you’re an ox teamster!” bawled the boss. “Well, well! That’s good. Reckon we’ll put some oxen onto the drive this spring so as to give you a job. How much do you know about teaming oxen?”After a great deal of mirth-provoking difficulty with b and g, the man meekly explained that he did know the butt end of a gad from the brad end.

“Who in the crowd has got an ox or two in his pocket?” queried Kyle. “We can’t hire an ox teamster for the drive”—he dwelt on oxen for the drive with much humorous effect—“without being sure that he can drive oxen. It would be blasted aggravating to have our drive hung up and the oxen all willing enough to pull it along, and then find out that the teamster was no good.”

Martin Brophy, tavernkeeper, was on the porch, enjoying the events that were staged in front of his place that day.

“Hey, Martin, isn’t there a gad in the cultch under your office desk?”

“Most everything has been left there, from an umbrella to a clap o’ thunder,” admitted Brophy. “I’ll look and see.”

“Better not go to fooling too much, Ben,” warned the master. “I’ve seen fooling spoil good business a lot of times.”

It was rebuke in the hearing of many men who were showing keen zest in what might be going to happen; it was treating a right-hand man like a child. Kyle resented it and his tone was sharp when he replied that he knew what he was doing. He turned away from the glaring eyes of the master and took in his hand the goad which Brophy brought.

There was a sudden tautness in the situation between Flagg and Kyle, and the crowd noted it. The master was not used to having his suggestions flouted.

The boss thrust the goad into the hand of the bashful fellow. “There’s a hitchpost right side of you, my man. Make believe it’s a yoke of oxen. What are your motions and your style of language in getting a start. Go to it!”

The teamster swished the goad in beckoning fashion after he had rapped it against the post in imitation of knocking on an ox’s nose to summon attention. His efforts to vault lingually over the first “double-u” excited much mirth. Even the corners of Flagg’s mouth twitched.

“Wo, wo hysh! Gee up, Bright! Wo haw, Star!” Such was the opening command.

“They don’t hear you,” declared Kyle. “Whoop ’er up!”

The teamster did make a desperate effort to drive his imaginary yoke of oxen. He danced and yelled and brandished the goad as a crazy director might slash with his baton. He used up all his drive words and invective.

Kyle could not let the joke stop there after the man had thrown down the goad, wiped his forehead, and declared that it wasn’t fair, trying to make him start a hitching post.

“Pick up your gad,” commanded the boss. He dropped on his hands and knees. “Now you show us what you can do. I’m a yoke of oxen.”

“You ain’t.”

“I tell you I am. Get busy. Start your team.”

“That’s about enough of that!” warned Flagg, sourly. “Kyle, get up onto your feet where you belong.”

But the spirit of jest made the boss reckless and willfully disobedient. He insisted doggedly on his rÔle as a balky ox and scowled at the teamster. “If you want a job you’ll have to show me!”

The teamster adjured Mr. Kyle in very polite language, and did not bring the swishing goad within two feet of the scornful nose; the candidate wanted a job and was not in a mood to antagonize a prospective boss.

“You’re a hell of a teamster!” yapped Kyle. “What’s your system? Do you get action by feeding an ox lollypops, kissing him on the nose and saying, ’Please,’ and ’Beg your pardon’?”

The big chap began to show some spirit of his own under the lash of the laughter that was encouraging Kyle.

“I ain’t getting a square deal, mister. That post wa’n’t an ox; you ain’t an ox.”

“I am, I tell you! Start me.”

“You vow and declare that you’re an ox, do you, before all in hearing?”

“That’s what!” Mr. Kyle was receiving the plaudits and encouragement of all his friends who enjoyed a joke, and was certain in his mind that he had that bashful stutterer sized up as a quitter. Flagg folded his arms and narrowed his eyes—his was the air of one who was allowing fate to deal with a fool who tempted it.

The candidate did not hurry matters. He spat meditatively into first one fist and then into the other. He grasped the goad in both hands. He looked calculatingly at Mr. Kyle, who was on his hands and knees, and was cocking an arch and provocative look upward, approving the grins of the men near him.

When the teamster did snap into action his manner indicated that he knew how to handle balky oxen. First he cracked Mr. Kyle smartly over the bridge of the nose. “Wo haw up!” was a command which Kyle tried to obey in a flame of ire, but a swifter and more violent blow across the nose sent him back on his heels, his eyes shut in his agony.

“Gee up into the yoke, you crumpled-horn hyampus!” The teamster welted the goad across Kyle’s haunches and further encouraged the putative ox by a thrust of a full inch of the brad.

When the boss came onto his feet with a berserker howl of fury and started to attack, the ox expert yelled, “Dat rat ye, don’t ye try to hook your horns into me!” Then he flailed the stick once more across Kyle’s nose with a force that knocked the boss flat on his back.

Echford Flagg stepped forward and stood between the two men when Kyle struggled to his feet and started toward the teamster with the mania of blood lust in his red eyes. The master put forth a hand and thrust back the raging mate. Flagg said something, but for a time he could not be heard above the tempest of howling laughter.

It was riotous abandonment to mirth. Men hung helplessly to other men or flapped their hands and staggered about, choking with their merriment. The savageness of the punishment administered to the boastful Kyle might have shocked persons with squeamish dispositions; it was wildly humorous in the estimation of those men o’ the forest. They were used to having their jokes served raw.

The roar that fairly put into the background the riot of the falling waters of the Noda was what all the region recognized as the ruination of a man’s authority in the north country; it was the Big Laugh.

Flagg, when he could make himself heard by his boss, holding Kyle in his mighty grip, made mention of the Big Laugh, too. “Kyle, you’ve got it at last by your damn folly. You’re licked forever in these parts. I warned you. You went ahead against my word to you. You’re no good to me after this.” He yanked the list of names from Kyle’s jacket pocket.

“Let me loose! I’m going to kill that——”

“You’re going to walk out—and away! You’re done. You’re fired. You can’t boss men after this. A boss, are you?” he demanded, with bitter irony. “All up and down this river, if you tried to boss men, they’d give you the grin and call you ’Co Boss’. They’d moo after you. Look at ’em now. Listen to ’em. Get out of my sight. I don’t forgive any man who goes against my word to him and then gets into trouble.” He thrust Kyle away with a force that sent the man staggering. He turned to the bashful chap, who had resumed his former demeanor of deprecation. “You’re hired. You’ve showed that you can drive oxen and I reckon you can drive logs.”

The teamster was too thoroughly bulwarked by admirers to allow the rampant Kyle an opportunity to get at him. And there was Flagg to reckon with if violence should be attempted. The deposed first mate slunk away.

“That, my men,” proclaimed the master, “is what the Big Laugh can do to a boss. No man can be a boss for me after he gets that laugh. I reckon I’ve hired my crew,” he went on, looking them over critically. “Stand by to follow me north in the morning.”