"Just what in particular is the matter?" Bruce asked, as the carpenter paused, not for want of verbal ammunition but because he was out of breath.
"Matter!" panted Woods, "he's got us strainin' our life out puttin' up them green four-by-eight's when they's no need. They'd carry a ocean cable, them cross-arms would. Four-by-fives is big enough for all the wire that'll be strung here. John Johnson jest fell out'n a tree a liftin' and like to broke a lung."
"Do you feel sure that four-by-five's are strong enough?"
"Try it--that's all I ask."
"You'd better come back to work."
The carpenter hesitated.
"I don't like to quit when you need me, but," he waved the rip-saw in a significant gesture, "if that Oregonian gives me any more back-talk I aims to cut him up in chunks."
It was the first time Bruce had countermanded one of Jennings's orders but now he backed Woods up. He had shared the carpenter's opinion that four-by-five's were strong enough but he had said nothing, supposing that Jennings was following precedent and knew what he was about. Woods, too, had voiced a suspicion which kept rising in his mind as to whether Jennings did know how to put up the machines. Was it possible that the unimportant detail work which Jennings insisted upon doing personally in order that it might be exactly right, was only a subterfuge to put off as long as possible the day when the showdown must come? Was it in his mind to draw his generous wages as long as he safely might then invent some plausible excuse to quit?
Bruce was not a fool but neither was he apt to be suspicious of a person he had no good reason to mistrust. He had made every allowance for Jennings' slowness, but his bank account was rapidly reaching a stage where, even if he would, he could no longer humor Jennings' mania for solidity. Something had to move, and, taking Jennings aside, Bruce told him so.
The look which darkened Jennings's face when his instructions to Woods were countermanded surprised Bruce. It was more than chagrin, it was--ugly. It prejudiced Bruce against him as all his puttering had failed to do. The correctness or incorrectness of his contention concerning the cross-arm seemed of less importance than the fact that Bruce's interference had impaired his dignity--belittled him in the eyes of the crew.
"Am I the constructin' ingineer, or ain't I? If I am, I'm entitled to some respect." More than ever Jennings looked like a bear pouting in a trap.
"What's your dignity got to do with it?" Bruce demanded. "I'm General Manager, when it comes to that, and I've been packing cross-arms like a mule. This is no time to talk about what's due you--get results. This pay-roll can't go on forever, Jennings. There's an end. At this rate it'll come quick. You know what the success of this proposition means to me--my first, and, I beg of you don't putter any more; get busy and put up those machines. You say that 50 horse-power motor has got to be rewound--"