The Riverman

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The Riverman

by Stewart Edward White

I

The time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river above
a long pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flat
lower than it, stood a two-story mill structure. Save for a small,
stump-dotted clearing, and the road that led from it, all else was
forest. Here in the bottom-lands, following the course of the
stream, the hardwoods grew dense, their uppermost branches just
beginning to spray out in the first green of spring. Farther back,
where the higher lands arose from the swamp, could be discerned the
graceful frond of white pines and hemlock, and the sturdy tops of
Norways and spruce.

A strong wind blew up the length of the pond. It ruffled the
surface of the water, swooping down in fan-shaped, scurrying cat's-
paws, turning the dark-blue surface as one turns the nap of velvet.
At the upper end of the pond it even succeeded in raising quite
respectable wavelets, which LAP LAP LAPPED eagerly against a barrier
of floating logs that filled completely the mouth of the inlet
river. And behind this barrier were other logs, and yet others, as
far as the eye could see, so that the entire surface of the stream
was carpeted by the brown timbers. A man could have walked down the
middle of that river as down a highway.

On the bank, and in a small woods-opening, burned two fires, their
smoke ducking and twisting under the buffeting of the wind. The
first of these fires occupied a shallow trench dug for its
accommodation, and was overarched by a rustic framework from which
hung several pails, kettles, and pots. An injured-looking, chubby
man in a battered brown derby hat moved here and there. He divided
his time between the utensils and an indifferent youth--his
"cookee." The other, and larger, fire centred a rectangle composed
of tall racks, built of saplings and intended for the drying of
clothes. Two large tents gleamed white among the trees.

About the drying-fire were gathered thirty-odd men. Some were half-
reclining before the blaze; others sat in rows on logs drawn close
for the purpose; still others squatted like Indians on their heels,
their hands thrown forward to keep the balance. Nearly all were
smoking pipes.

Every age was represented in this group, but young men predominated.
All wore woollen trousers stuffed into leather boots reaching just
to the knee. These boots were armed on the soles with rows of
formidable sharp spikes or caulks, a half and sometimes even three
quarters of an inch in length. The tight driver's shoe and
"stagged" trousers had not then come into use. From the waist down
these men wore all alike, as though in a uniform, the outward symbol
of their calling. From the waist up was more latitude of personal
taste. One young fellow sported a bright-coloured Mackinaw blanket
jacket; another wore a red knit sash, with tasselled ends; a third's
fancy ran to a bright bandana about his neck. Head-gear, too,
covered wide variations of broader or narrower brim, of higher or
lower crown; and the faces beneath those hats differed as everywhere
the human countenance differs. Only when the inspection, passing
the gradations of broad or narrow, thick or thin, bony or rounded,
rested finally on the eyes, would the observer have caught again the
caste-mark which stamped these men as belonging to a distinct order,
and separated them essentially from other men in other occupations.
Blue and brown and black and gray these eyes were, but all steady
and clear with the steadiness and clarity that comes to those whose
daily work compels them under penalty to pay close and undeviating
attention to their surroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters,
plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of
the old-fashioned river-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a
moment's forgetfulness of the sullen forces shifting and changing
about him could mean for him maiming or destruction. So, finally,
to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots,"
grew to seem part of the uniform, one of the marks of their caste,
the outward symbol of their calling.

"Blow, you son of a gun!" cried disgustedly one young fellow with a
red bandana, apostrophising the wind. "I wonder if there's ANY side
of this fire that ain't smoky!"

"Keep your hair on, bub," advised a calm and grizzled old-timer.
"There's never no smoke on the OTHER side of the fire--whichever
that happens to be. And as for wind--she just makes holiday for the
river-hogs."

"Holiday, hell!" snorted the younger man. "We ought to be down to
Bull's Dam before now--"

"And Bull's Dam is half-way to Redding," mocked a reptilian and red-
headed giant on the log, "and Redding is the happy childhood home
of--"

The young man leaped to his feet and seized from a pile of tools a
peavy--a dangerous weapon, like a heavy cant-hook, but armed at the
end with a sharp steel shoe.

"That's about enough!" he warned, raising his weapon, his face
suffused and angry. The red-headed man, quite unafraid, rose slowly
from the log and advanced, bare-handed, his small eyes narrowed and
watchful.

But immediately a dozen men interfered.

"Dry up!" advised the grizzled old-timer--Tom North by name. "You,
Purdy, set down; and you, young squirt, subside! If you're going to
have ructions, why, have 'em, but not on drive. If you don't look
out, I'll set you both to rustling wood for the doctor."

At this threat the belligerents dropped muttering to their places.
The wind continued to blow, the fire continued to flare up and down,
the men continued to smoke, exchanging from time to time desultory
and aimless remarks. Only Tom North carried on a consecutive, low-
voiced conversation with another of about his own age.

" Just the same, Jim," he was saying, " it is a little tough on the
boys--this new sluice-gate business. They've been sort of expectin'
a chance for a day or two at Redding, and now, if this son of a gun
of a wind hangs out, I don't know when we'll make her. The shallows
at Bull's was always bad enough, but this is worse."

"Yes, I expected to pick you up 'way below," admitted Jim, whose
"turkey," or clothes-bag, at his side proclaimed him a newcomer.
"Had quite a tramp to find you."

"This stretch of slack water was always a terror," went on North,
"and we had fairly to pike-pole every stick through when the wind
blew; but now that dam's backed the water up until there reely ain't
no current at all. And this breeze has just stopped the drive dead
as a smelt."

"Don't opening the sluice-gates give her a draw?" inquired the
newcomer.

"Not against this wind--and not much of a draw, anyway, I should
guess."

"How long you been hung?"

"Just to-day. I expect Jack will be down from the rear shortly.
Ought to see something's wrong when he runs against the tail of this
jam of ours."

At this moment the lugubrious, round-faced man in the derby hat
stepped aside from the row of steaming utensils he had been
arranging.

"Grub pile," he remarked in a conversational tone of voice.

The group arose as one man and moved upon the heap of cutlery and of
tin plates and cups. From the open fifty-pound lard pails and
kettles they helped themselves liberally; then retired to squat in
little groups here and there near the sources of supply. Mere
conversation yielded to an industrious silence. Sadly the cook
surveyed the scene, his arms folded across the dirty white apron, an
immense mental reservation accenting the melancholy of his
countenance. After some moments of contemplation he mixed a
fizzling concoction of vinegar and soda, which he drank. His
rotundity to the contrary notwithstanding, he was ravaged by a
gnawing dyspepsia, and the sight of six eggs eaten as a side dish to
substantials carried consternation to his interior.

So busily engaged was each after his own fashion that nobody
observed the approach of a solitary figure down the highway of the
river. The man appeared tiny around the upper bend, momently
growing larger as he approached. His progress was jerky and on an
uneven zigzag, according as the logs lay, by leaps, short runs,
brief pauses, as a riverman goes. Finally he stepped ashore just
below the camp, stamped his feet vigorously free of water, and
approached the group around the cooking-fire.

No one saw him save the cook, who vouchsafed him a stately and
lugubrious inclination of the head.

The newcomer was a man somewhere about thirty years of age, squarely
built, big of bone, compact in bulk. His face was burly, jolly, and
reddened rather than tanned by long exposure. A pair of twinkling
blue eyes and a humorously quirked mouth redeemed his countenance
from commonplaceness.

He spread his feet apart and surveyed the scene.

"Well, boys," he remarked at last in a rollicking big voice, "I'm
glad to see the situation hasn't spoiled your appetites."

At this they looked up with a spontaneous answering grin. Tom North
laid aside his plate and started to arise.

"Sit still, Tom," interposed the newcomer. "Eat hearty. I'm going
to feed yet myself. Then we'll see what's to be done. I think
first thing you'd better see to having this wind turned off."

After the meal was finished, North and his principal sauntered to
the water's edge, where they stood for a minute looking at the logs
and the ruffled expanse of water below.

"Might as well have sails on them and be done with it," remarked
Jack Orde reflectively. "Couldn't hold 'em any tighter. It's a
pity that old mossback had to put in a mill. The water was slack
enough before, but now there seems to be no current at all."

"Case of wait for the wind," agreed Tom North. "Old Daly will be
red-headed. He must be about out of logs at the mill. The flood-
water's going down every minute, and it'll make the riffles above
Redding a holy fright. And I expect Johnson's drive will be down on
our rear most any time."

"It's there already. Let's go take a look," suggested Orde.

They picked their way around the edge of the pond to the site of the
new mill.

"Sluice open all right," commented Orde. "Thought she might be
closed."

"I saw to that," rejoined North in an injured tone.

"'Course," agreed Orde, "but he might have dropped her shut on you
between times, when you weren't looking."

He walked out on the structure and looked down on the smooth water
rushing through.

"Ought to make a draw," he reflected. Then he laughed. "Tom, look
here," he called. "Climb down and take a squint at this."

North clambered to a position below.

"The son of a gun!" he exclaimed.

The sluice, instead of bedding at the natural channel of the river,
had been built a good six feet above that level; so that, even with
the gates wide open, a "head" of six feet was retained in the slack
water of the pond.

"No wonder we couldn't get a draw," said Orde. "Let's hunt up old
What's-his-name and have a pow-wow."

"His name is plain Reed," explained North. "There he comes now."

"Sainted cats!" cried Orde, with one of his big, rollicking
chuckles. "Where did you catch it?"

The owner of the dam flapped into view as a lank and lengthy
individual dressed in loose, long clothes and wearing a-top a
battered old "plug" hat, the nap of which seemed all to have been
rubbed off the wrong way.

As he bore down on the intruders with tremendous, nervous strides,
they perceived him to be an old man, white of hair, cadaverous of
countenance, with thin, straight lips, and burning, fanatic eyes
beneath stiff and bushy brows.

"Good-morning, Mr. Reed," shouted Orde above the noise of the water.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," replied the apparition.

"Nice dam you got here," went on Orde.

Reed nodded, his fiery eyes fixed unblinking on the riverman.

"But you haven't been quite square to us," said Orde. You aren't
giving us much show to get our logs out."

"How so?" snapped the owner, his thin lips tightening.

"Oh, I guess you know, all right," laughed Orde, clambering
leisurely back to the top of the dam. "That sluice is a good six
foot too high."

"Is that so!" cried the old man, plunging suddenly into a craze of
excitement. "Well, let me tell you this, Mr. Man, I'm giving you
all the law gives you, and that's the natural flow of the river, and
not a thing more will you get! You that comes to waste and destroy,
to arrogate unto yourselves the kingdoms of the yearth and all the
fruits thereof, let me tell you you can't override Simeon Reed! I'm
engaged here in a peaceful and fittin' operation, which is to feed
the hungry by means of this grist-mill, not to rampage and bring
destruction to the noble forests God has planted! I've give you
what the law gives you, and nothin' more!"

Somewhat astonished at this outbreak, the two rivermen stood for a
moment staring at the old man. Then a steely glint crept into
Orde's frank blue eye and the corners of his mouth tightened.

"We want no trouble with you, Mr. Reed," said he, "and I'm no lawyer
to know what the law requires you to do and what it requires you not
to do. But I do know that this is the only dam on the river with
sluices built up that way, and I do know that we'll never get those
logs out if we don't get more draw on the water. Good-day."

Followed by the reluctant North he walked away, leaving the gaunt
figure of the dam owner gazing after them, his black garments
flapping about him, his hands clasped behind his back, his ruffled
plug hat thrust from his forehead.

"Well!" burst out North, when they were out of hearing.

"Well!" mimicked Orde with a laugh.

"Are you going to let that old high-banker walk all over you?"

"What are you going to do about it, Tom? It's his dam."

"I don't know. But you ain't going to let him bang us up here all
summer--"

"Sure not. But the wind's shifting. Let's see what the weather's
like to-morrow. To-day's pretty late."

II

The next morning dawned clear and breathless. Before daylight the
pessimistic cook was out, his fire winking bravely against the
darkness. His only satisfaction of the long day came when he
aroused the men from the heavy sleep into which daily toil plunged
them. With the first light the entire crew were at the banks of the
river.

As soon as the wind died the logs had begun to drift slowly out into
the open water. The surface of the pond was covered with the
scattered timbers floating idly. After a few moments the clank of
the bars and ratchet was heard as two of the men raised the heavy
sluice-gate on the dam. A roar of water, momently increasing,
marked the slow rise of the barrier. A very imaginative man might
then have made out a tendency forward on the part of those timbers
floating nearest the centre of the pond. It was a very sluggish
tendency, however, and the men watching critically shook their
heads.

Four more had by this time joined the two men who had raised the
gate, and all together, armed with long pike poles, walked out on
the funnel-shaped booms that should concentrate the logs into the
chute. Here they prodded forward the few timbers within reach, and
waited for more.

These were a long time coming. Members of the driving crew leaped
shouting from one log to another. Sometimes, when the space across
was too wide to jump, they propelled a log over either by rolling
it, paddling it, or projecting it by the shock of a leap on one end.
In accomplishing these feats of tight-rope balance, they stood
upright and graceful, quite unconscious of themselves, their bodies
accustomed by long habit to nice and instant obedience to the almost
unconscious impulses of the brain. Only their eyes, intent,
preoccupied, blazed out by sheer will-power the unstable path their
owners should follow. Once at the forefront of the drive, the men
began vigorously to urge the logs forward. This they accomplished
almost entirely by main strength, for the sluggish current gave them
little aid. Under the pressure of their feet as they pushed against
their implements, the logs dipped, rolled, and plunged.
Nevertheless, they worked as surely from the decks of these unstable
craft as from the solid earth itself.

In this manner the logs in the centre of the pond were urged forward
until, above the chute, they caught the slightly accelerated current
which should bring them down to the pike-pole men at the dam.
Immediately, when this stronger influence was felt, the drivers
zigzagged back up stream to start a fresh batch. In the meantime a
great many logs drifted away to right and left into stagnant water,
where they lay absolutely motionless. The moving of them was
deferred for the "sacking crew," which would bring up the rear.

Jack Orde wandered back and forth over the work, his hands clasped
behind his back, a short pipe clenched between his teeth. To the
edge of the drive he rode the logs, then took to the bank and
strolled down to the dam. There he stood for a moment gazing
aimlessly at the water making over the apron, after which he
returned to the work. No cloud obscured the serene good-nature of
his face. Meeting Tom North's troubled glance, he grinned broadly.

"Told you we'd have Johnson on our necks," he remarked, jerking his
thumb up river toward a rapidly approaching figure.

This soon defined itself as a tall, sun-reddened, very blond
individual with a choleric blue eye.

"What in hell's the matter here?" he yelled, as soon as he came
within hearing distance.

Orde made no reply, but stood contemplating the newcomer with a
flicker of amusement.

"What in hell's the matter?" repeated the latter violently.

"Better go there and inquire," rejoined Orde drolly. "What ails
you, Johnson?"

"We're right at your rear," cried the other, " and you ain't even
made a start gettin' through this dam! We'll lose the water next!
Why in hell ain't you through and gone?"

"Keep your shirt on," advised Orde. "We're getting through as fast
as we can. If you want these logs pushed any faster, come down and
do it yourself."

Johnson vouchsafed no reply, but splashed away over the logs,
examining in detail the progress of the work. After a little he
returned within hailing distance.

"If you can't get out logs, why do you take the job?" he roared,
with a string of oaths. "If you hang my drive, damn you, you'll
catch it for damages! It's gettin' to a purty pass when any old
highbanker from anywheres can get out and play jackstraws holdin' up
every drive in the river! I tell you our mills need logs, and
what's more they're agoin' to GIT them!"

He departed in a rumble of vituperation.

Orde laughed humorously at his foreman.

"Johnson gets so mad sometimes, his skin cracks," he remarked.
"However," he went on more seriously, "there's a heap in what he
means, if there ain't so much in what he says. I'll go labour with
our old friend below."

He regained the bank, stopped to light his pipe, and sauntered, with
every appearance of leisure, down the bank, past the dam, to the
mill structure below.

Here he found the owner occupying a chair tilted back against the
wall of the building. His ruffled plug hat was thrust, as usual,
well away from his high and narrow forehead; the long broadcloth
coat fell back to reveal an unbuttoned waistcoat the flapping black
trousers were hitched up far enough to display woollen socks
wrinkled about bony shanks. He was whittling a pine stick, which he
held pointing down between his spread knees, and conversing
animatedly with a young fellow occupying another chair at his side.

"And there comes one of 'em now," declaimed the old man
dramatically.

Orde nodded briefly to the stranger, and came at once to business.

"I want to talk this matter over with you," he began. "We aren't
making much progress. We can't afford to hang up the drive, and the
water is going down every day. We've got to have more water. I'll
tell you what we'll do: If you'll let us cut down the new sill,
we'll replace it in good shape when we get all our logs through."

"No, sir!" promptly vetoed the old man.

"Well, we'll give you something for the privilege. What do you
think is fair?"

"I tell ye I'll give you your legal rights, and not a cent more,"
replied the old man, still quietly, but with quivering nostrils.

"What is your name?" asked Orde.

"My name is Reed, sir."

"Well, Mr. Reed, stop and think what this means. It's a more
serious matter than you think. In a little while the water will be
so low in the river that it will be impossible to take out the logs
this year. That means a large loss, of course, as you know."

"I don't know nothin' about the pesky business, and I don't wan to,"
snorted Reed.

"Well, there's borers, for one thing, to spoil a good many of the
logs. And think what it will mean to the mills. No logs means no
lumber. That is bankruptcy for a good many who have contracts to
fulfil. And no logs means the mills must close. Thousands of men
will be thrown out of their jobs, and a good many of them will go
hungry. And with the stream full of the old cutting, that means
less to do next winter in the woods--more men thrown out. Getting
out a season's cut with the flood-water is a pretty serious matter
to a great many people, and if you insist on holding us up here in
this slack water the situation will soon become alarming."

"Ye finished?" demanded Reed grimly.

"Yes," replied Orde.

The old man cast from him his half-whittled piece of pine. He
closed his jack-knife with a snap and thrust it in his pocket. He
brought to earth the front legs of his chair with a thump, and
jammed his ruffled plug hat to its proper place.

"And if the whole kit and kaboodle of ye starved out-right," said
he, "it would but be the fulfillin' of the word of the prophet who
says, 'So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they
shall bereave thee, and pestilence and blood shall pass through
thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken
it!'"

"That's your last word?" inquired Orde.

"That's my last word, and my first. Ye that make of God's smilin'
land waste places and a wilderness, by your own folly shall ye
perish."

"Good-day," said Orde, whirling on his heel without further
argument.

The young man, who had during this colloquy sat an interested and
silent spectator, arose and joined him. Orde looked at his new
companion a little curiously. lie was a very slender young man,
taut-muscled, taut-nerved, but impassive in demeanour. He possessed
a shrewd, thin face, steel-gray, inscrutable eyes behind glasses.
His costume was quite simply an old gray suit of business clothes
and a gray felt hat. At the moment he held in his mouth an
unlighted and badly chewed cigar.

"Nice, amiable old party," volunteered Orde with a chuckle.

"Seems to be," agreed the young man drily.

"Well, I reckon we'll just have to worry along without him,"
remarked Orde, striking his steel caulks into the first log and
preparing to cross out into the river where the work was going on.

"Wait a minute," said the young fellow. "Have you any objections to
my hanging around a little to watch the work? My name is Newmark--
Joseph Newmark. I'm out in this country a good deal for my health.
This thing interests me."

"Sure," replied Orde, puzzled. "Look all you want to. The
scenery's free."

"Yes. But can you put me up? Can I get a chance to stay with you a
little while?"

"Oh, as far as I'm concerned," agreed Orde heartily. "But," he
supplemented with one of his contagious chuckles, "I'm only river-
boss. You'll have to fix it up with the doctor--the cook, I mean,"
he explained, as Newmark look puzzled. "You'll find him at camp up
behind that brush. He's a slim, handsome fellow, with a jolly
expression of countenance."

He leaped lightly out over the bobbing timbers, leaving Newmark to
find his way.

In the centre of the stream the work had been gradually slowing down
to a standstill with the subsidence of the first rush of water after
the sluice-gate was opened. Tom North, leaning gracefully against
the shaft of a peavy, looked up eagerly as his principal approached.

"Well, Jack," he inquired, "is it to be peace or war?"

"War," replied Orde briefly.

III

At this moment the cook stepped into view, and, making a trumpet of
his two hands, sent across the water a long, weird, and not
unmusical cry. The men at once began slowly to drift in the
direction of the camp. There, when the tin plates had all been
filled, and each had found a place to his liking, Orde addressed
them. His manner was casual and conversational.

"Boys," said he, "the old mossback who owns that dam has come up
here loaded to scatter. He's built up the sill of that gate until
we can't get a draw on the water, and he refuses to give, lend, or
sell us the right to cut her out. I've made him every reasonable
proposition, but all I get back is quotations from the prophets.
Now, we've got to get those logs out--that's what we're here for. A
fine bunch of whitewater birlers we'd look if we got hung up by an
old mossback in a plug hat. Johnny Sims, what's the answer?"

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