“You couldn’t tell me anything!”

“Sure!  That’s just the trouble with you—­nobody can tell you anything!”

“I whip-sawed before you was born!”

Astonishment momentarily robbed Mr. Quirk of speech, then he broke out more indignantly than ever.  “Why, you lyin’ horse-thief, you never heard of a whip-saw till we bought our outfit.  You was for tying one end to a limb and the other end to a root and then rubbin’ the log up and down it.”

“I never meant that.  I was fooling and you know it.  That’s just like you, to—­”

“Say, if you’d ever had holt of a whip-saw in all your useless life, the man on the other end of it would have belted you with the handle and buried you in the sawdust.  I’d ought to, but I ’ain’t got the heart!” The speaker spat on his hands and in a calmer, more business-like tone said:  “Well, come on.  Let’s go.  This is our last board.”

Tom Linton checked an insulting remark that had just occurred to him.  It had nothing whatever to do with the subject under dispute, but it would have goaded Jerry to insanity, therefore it clamored for expression and the temptation to hurl it forth was almost irresistible.  Linton, however, prided himself upon his self-restraint, and accordingly he swallowed his words.  He clicked his teeth, he gritted them—­he would have enjoyed sinking them into his partner’s throat, as a matter of fact—­then he growled, “Let her whiz!”

In unison the men resumed their interrupted labors; slowly, rhythmically, their arms moved up and down, monotonously their aching backs bent and straightened, inch by inch the saw blade ate along the penciled line.  It was killing work, for it called into play unused, under-developed muscles, yes, muscles which did not and never would or could exist.  Each time Linton lifted the saw it grew heavier by the fraction of a pound.  Whenever Quirk looked up to note progress his eyes were filled with stinging particles of sawdust.  His was a tearful job:  sawdust was in his hair, his beard, it had sifted down inside his neckband and it itched his moist body.  It had worked into his underclothes and he could not escape it even at night in his bed.  He had of late acquired the habit of repeating over and over, with a pertinacity intensely irritating to his partner, that he could taste sawdust in his food—­a statement manifestly false and well calculated to offend a camp cook.

After they had sawed for a while Jerry cried:  “Hey!  She’s runnin’ out again.”  He accompanied this remark by an abrupt cessation of effort.  As a result the saw stopped in its downward course and Tom’s chin came into violent contact with the upper handle.

The man above uttered a cry of pain and fury; he clapped a hand to his face as if to catch and save his teeth.