A
trifle, but one of those trifles that recurs with irritating
persistence no matter how often the mind gives it dismissal.
About ten o'clock that morning a logger came up to the works on the
hill.
"Can you use another man?" he asked bluntly. "I want to work."
Hollister engaged him. By his dress, by his manner, Hollister knew
that he was at home in the woods. He was young, sturdily built,
handsome in a swarthy way. There was about him a slightly familiar
air. Hollister thought he might have seen him at the steamer landing,
or at Carr's. He mentioned that.
"I have been working there," the man replied. "Working on the boom."
He was frank enough about it. He wanted money,--a stake. He believed
he could make more cutting shingle bolts by the cord. This was true.
Hollister's men were making top wages. The cedar stood on good ground.
It was big, clean timber, easy to work.
"I'll be on the job to-morrow," he said, after they had talked it
over. "Take me this afternoon to get my outfit packed up here."
Hollister was haunted by the man's face at odd times during the day.
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