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Around were the grimy bunks where the forty men slept like tramps in a steamer’s hold. The quilts were grimy, and the posts greasy and shining with the touch of hands. There were no chairs–only a kind of rude stool made of boards. There were benches near the stove, nailed to the rough floor. In each bunk, hanging to a peg, was the poor little imitation-leather hand-bag which contained the whole wardrobe of each man, exclusive of the tattered socks and shirts hanging over the stove.

The room was chill and cold and gray. It had only two small windows. Its doors were low. Even Mrs. Field was forced to stoop in entering. This helped to make it seem like a den. There were roller-towels in the corner and wash-basins, and a grindstone which made it seem like a barn. It was, in fact, more cheerless than a barn, and less wholesome.

“Doesn’t that hay in the bunks get a–a–sometimes?” asked Field.

“Well, yes, I shouldn’t wonder, though the men are pretty strict about that. They keep pretty free from bugs, I think. However, I shouldn’t want to run no river chances on the thing myself.” Ridgeley smiled at Mrs. Field’s shudder of horror.

“Is this the place?” The men laughed. She had asked that question so many times before.

“Yes, this is where Mr. Williams hangs out. Say, Field, you’ll need to make some new move to hold your end up against Williams.”

Mrs. Field felt hurt and angry at his rough joke. In the dim corner a cough was heard, and as a yellow head raised itself over the bunk-board a man presented a ghastly face. His big blue eyes fixed themselves on the lovely woman with a look of childish wonder.

“Hello, Gus–didn’t see you! What’s the matter–sick?”

“Yah, ai baen hwick two days. Ai tank ai lack to hav doketer.”

“All right, I’ll send him up. What seems the matter?”

As they talked, Mrs. Field again chilled with the cold gray comfortlessness of it all: to be sick in such a place! The silent appearance of the man out of his grim corner was startling. She was glad when they drove out into the woods again, where the clear sunshine fell and the pines stood against the blazing winter sky motionless as iron trees. Her pleasure in the ride was growing less. To her delicate sense this life was sordid, not picturesque. She wondered how Williams endured it. They arrived at No. 8 just as the men were trailing down the road to work, after eating their dinner. Their gay-colored jackets of Mackinac wool stood out like trumpet notes in the prevailing white and blue and bronze-green.

The boss and the sealer came out and met them, and after introductions they went into the shanty to dinner. The cook was a deft young Norwegian–a clean, quick, gentlemanly fellow with a fine brown mustache. He cleared a place for them at one end of the long table, and they sat down.

It was a large camp, but much like the others. On the table were the same cheap iron forks, the tin plates, and the small tin basins (for tea) which made up the dinner-set. Basins of brown sugar stood about.

“Good gracious! Do people still eat brown sugar? Why, I haven’t seen any of that for ages!” cried Mrs. Field.

The stew was good and savory, and the bread fair. The tea was not all clover, but it tasted of the tin. Mrs. Field said:

“Beef, beef–everywhere beef. One might suppose a menagerie of desert animals ate here. Edward, we must make things more comfortable for our men. They must have cups to drink out of; these basins are horrible.”

It was humorous to the men, this housewifely suggestion.

“Oh, make it napkins, Allie!”

“You can laugh, but I sha’n’t rest after seeing this. If you thought I was going to say, ‘Oh, how picturesque!’ you’re mistaken. I think it’s barbarous.”

She was getting impatient of their patronizing laughter, as if she were a child. They changed their manner to one of acquiescence, but thought of her as a child just the same.