He was no partner, however; he was on a salary with a bonus percentage of the profits; but that increased his vigour.
There were times when he longed for the backwoods life; when the smell of the pines and the firs and the juniper got into his nostrils; when he heard, in imagination, the shouts of the river-men as they chopped down the trees, sawed the boles into standard lengths, and plunged the big timbers into the stream, or round the fire at night made call upon the spirit of recreation.

In imagination, he felt the timbers creaking and straining under his feet; he smelt the rich soup from the cook's caboose; he drank basins of tea from well-polished metal; he saw the ugly rows in the taverns, where men let loose from river duty tried to regain civilian life by means of liquor and cards; he heard the stern thud of a hard fist against a piece of wood; he saw twenty men spring upon another twenty with rage in their faces; he saw hundreds of men arrived in civilization once again striking for their homes and loved ones, storming with life.

He saw the door flung open, and the knee-booted, corduroyed river-man, with red sash around his waist and gold rings in his ears, seize the woman he called wife and swing her to him with a hungry joy; he saw the children pushed gently here, or roughly, but playfully, tossed in the air and caught again; but he also saw the rough spirits of the river march into their homes like tyrants returned, as it were, cursing and banging their way back to their rightful nests.
Occasionally he would wish to be in it all again, out in the wild woods and on the river and in the shanty, free and strong and friendly and a bit ferocious.

All he had known of the backwoods life filled his veins, tortured him at times.
From the day that both wills were made and signed, no word had been spoken concerning them between him and John Grier.

He admired certain characteristics of John Grier; some secret charities, some impulsive generosity, some signs of public spirit.