Before leaving for the Pacific coast to buy machinery, Bruce had mapped out for the crew the work to be done in his absence and now, upon his return, he found great changes had come to the quiet bar on the river. There was a kitchen where Toy reigned, an arbitrary monarch, and a long bunk-house built of lumber sawed by an old-fashioned water-wheel which itself had been laboriously whip-sawed from heavy logs. Across the river the men were straining and lifting and tugging on the green timbers for the 500 feet of trestle which the survey demanded in order to get the 200-feet head that was necessary to develop the 250 horse-power needed for the pumps and scrapers.
Bruce was not long in exchanging the clothes of civilization for the recognized uniform of the miner, and in flannel shirt and overalls he toiled side by side with Porcupine Jim, Lannigan and the other local celebrities on his pay-roll, who by heroic exertions were pushing the trestle foot by foot across Big Squaw creek.
The position of General Manager as Bruce interpreted it was no sinecure. A General Manager who worked was an anomaly, something unheard of in the district where the title carried with it the time-honored prerogative of sitting in the shade issuing orders, sustained and soothed by an unfailing supply of liquid refreshment.
And while the crew wondered, they criticised--not through any lack of regard for Bruce but merely from habit and the secret belief that whatever he did they could have done better. In their hours of relaxation it was their wont to go over his plans for working the ground, so far as they knew them, and explain to each other carefully and in detail how it was impossible for Bruce with the kind of a "rig" he was putting in, to handle enough dirt to wash out a breast-pin. Yet they toiled none the less faithfully for these dispiriting conversations, doing the work of horses, often to the point of exhaustion.
When the trestle was well along Bruce commenced sawing lumber for the half mile of flume which was to bring the water from the head-gate across the trestle to the pressure-box above the power-house. He sawed in such frenzy of haste--for there was so much to do and so little time to do it in--and with such concentration that when he raised his eyes the air seemed full of two by fours, and bottoms. When he closed them at night he saw "inch stuff," and bottoms. When he dreamed, it was of saw-logs, battens and bottoms.
Spring came unmistakably and Bruce waited anxiously for word from Jennings that the repairs had been made and the machinery was on its way to Meadows--the mountain town one hundred and fifty miles above where the barges would be built and loaded for their hazardous journey.