At dark that night the raft tied up to the bank. It was necessary to let the loose logs go through the night. In the morning they would be found strung along the banks of the river for miles upon miles. The raft would be started immediately after breakfast, and would get well down into the midst of the timber by the time the men along shore could push all the logs from the banks and get them into the current.

But that night the tie-up had been made near some camps, and the tired men had a place to eat and sleep in comfort.

The cook took possession of the camp, and it was not long before he had served a meal of boiled pork, baked beans, hot biscuit and molasses.

The beans steamed and sent out an odor that was quite enough to make a hungry man feel ravenous, and the drivers, the most of them soaking wet, gathered about the table.

Forest had offered Frank and his friends a chance to eat at the first table, but Merry declined, saying the drivers should have the first opportunity. The men appreciated this, and it served in a great measure to make them feel that the boys were not intruders.

It was a spectacle to watch those men “stow away”[196] the pork and beans, washed down by boiling hot tea. They ate like starving men.

Sullivan was among them. He did not even look at Frank Merriwell, and he made no talk at supper, save to growl in a surly manner at the cookee, a boy of seventeen.

The foreman had been in an ugly mood all day. No one dared ask how he had received the scars and bruises on his face, but in some manner it became rumored among the crew that Sullivan and Pombere had been whipped in a fight at Mattawamkeag. Then it was reported that they had been whipped by two beardless youths, and the victors were two of Forest’s guests who were going down the river with the drift. This latter statement, however, was not believed, for Sullivan was the terror of the river, and the drivers were certain he could whip the whole of Merriwell’s party with one hand tied behind him.

When the crew had eaten there was still plenty of hot beans and biscuits left, and the cookee soon arranged the table for Forest and his friends.

Every lad felt that he could eat with a relish, and soon they were doing their best to clear the table of food. Never before had baked beans tasted so good. Even Jack Diamond, who had a distaste for beans, admitted that they were good enough to eat.

While they were eating, Forest asked one of the drivers to sing a song, and then said to Merry:

“We’ll have a chance to hear a typical lumberman’s song from that old fellow. The old-fashioned songs of the lumbermen are like the old-time songs of the sailors. Nearly always they are sung in a certain tune which[197] seems to fit them all, and they tell a story that is strung out in from fifty to a hundred stanzas. The tune of the sailors reminds one of the wind and the waves; the tune of the lumber camps is suggestive of the dark forests and their tragedies.”

The old man needed some urging, as there were strangers present, but, after a time, he consented to sing. Before he began, the men filled their pipes and found comfortable positions on the “deacon’s seat” and around the camp. As Frank and his friends said smoking would not disturb them in the least, Forest told the men to “fire up.” So the drivers began to smoke as they prepared to listen.

Two kerosene lamps lighted the strange scene, which was one never to be forgotten by Frank. The faces of the rough, weather-beaten men were studies for him.

At last the old driver was ready, and he started into the song, which told of the hard heart and imperial sway of John Ross, a local lumber boss. There never was another such man as John Ross. He faced storms and floods, and defied fate to gain his ends. If he wanted more men he went from house to house for them, and when they heard him coming every male member of the families arose and went to the woods to do his bidding without a murmur, not daring to refuse. He took the newly-wedded bridegroom from the embrace of his weeping bride, and he tore the son from the feeble father who could not live to see the snows of winter pass away with the coming of the spring sunshine. But gradually the song goes on to show the better points in the man’s character,[198] telling of his courage and charity, and, in the end, everybody is compelled to own that, in spite of his many eccentricities, John Ross is a decent sort of man.

By the time this epic was ended supper was over and the table pretty well cleared. Then somebody proposed “congregational singing,” and the men took their pipes from their mouths and prepared to “limber up.”

Then the songs came in floods. Some one started in with “Nellie Gray,” and, with few exceptions, every man joined in the chorus. Then came “John Brown’s Body” and “Marching Through Georgia.”

“Old Black Joe” was followed by “Annie Rooney” and “Down Went McGinty.” But it was on the chorus of “Nicodemus” that the singers “bore down hard.”

“There’s a good time coming,

It’s almost here;

It has been long, lo-ong, lo-on-ng,

On the way.”

As they roared forth this chorus, the men clapped their hands, stamped their feet and threw back their heads. A cloud of dust filled the room, the lanterns swayed and burned dimly, and the rough rafters seemed to bulge outward with the volume of sound.

Then Merriwell, Diamond, Browning and Hodge, forming a quartet, sang the college songs so familiar to them, but most of them absolutely new to the ears of the river drivers. They were heartily applauded.

Then Merriwell told of Hans’ attempt to become a river driver, making the story so humorous that the men roared with laughter.

[199]

“Vot vos I laughin’ ad?” demanded the Dutch boy, his face flushing. “I don’d like dot. Some odder dime mebbe I vos aple to drife a log der rifer down.”

“No man ever gits to be a regular river driver till he has been properly initiated,” grinned one of the men. “Arter that he’s all right, an’ he can ride a log with ther best of ’em.”

“Vot vos dot kernishiated?” asked Hans, eagerly. “How you done dot?”

“Oh, it’s easy............