A shout of surprise or horror would have stopped the horse pulling on the decking chain; the heavy stick would have slid back on the prostrate young man, who would have thereupon been ground to atoms as he lay.

With the utmost coolness Gladys swarmed the slanting face of the load; interposed the length of his cant-hook stock between the log and it; held it exactly long enough to straighten the timber, but not so long as to crush his own head and arm; and ducked, just as the great piece of wood rumbled over the end of the skids and dropped with a thud into the place Norton, the "top" man, had prepared for it.
It was a fine deed, quickly thought, quickly dared.

No one saw it.

Jim Gladys was a hero, but a hero without an audience.
They took Thorpe up and carried him in, just as they had carried Hank Paul before.

Men who had not spoken a dozen words to him in as many days gathered his few belongings and stuffed them awkwardly into his satchel.
Jackson Hines prepared the bed of straw and warm blankets in the bottom of the sleigh that was to take him out.
"He would have made a good boss," said the old fellow.