The Riverman

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Riverman

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Some of the logs shot away down the current, running freely. To
these the crews were not required to pay any attention. With luck,
a few of the individual timbers would float ten, even twenty, miles
before some chance eddy or fortuitous obstruction would bring them
to rest. Such eddies and obstructions, however, drew a constant
toll from the ranks of the free-moving logs, so that always the
volume of timbers floating with the current diminished, and always
the number of logs caught and stranded along the sides of the river
increased. To restore these to the faster water was the especial
province of the last and most expert crew--the rear.

Orde discovered about noon that the jam crew was having its
troubles. Immediately below Reed's dam ran a long chute strewn with
boulders, which was alternately a shallow or a stretch of white-
water according as the stream rose or fell. Ordinarily the logs
were flushed over this declivity by opening the gate, behind which a
head of water had been accumulated. Now, however, the efficiency of
the gate had been destroyed. Orde early discovered that he was
likely to have trouble in preventing the logs rushing through the
chute from grounding into a bad jam on the rapids below.

For a time the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In
the centre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier.
Along the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own
momentum into places so shallow as to discourage any hope of
refloating them unless by main strength. As the sluicing of the
nine or ten million feet that constituted this particular drive went
forward, the situation rapidly became worse.

Tom, we've got to get flood-water unless we want to run into an
awful job there," said Orde to the foreman. "I wonder if we can't
drop that gate 'way down to get something for a head."

The two men examined the chute and the sluice-gate attentively for
some time.

"If we could clear out the splinters and rubbish, we might spike a
couple of saplings on each side for the gate to slide down into,"
speculated North. "Might try her on."

The logs were held up in the pond, and a crew of men set to work to
cut away, as well as they might in the rush of water, the splintered
ends of the old sill and apron. It was hard work. Newmark,
watching, thought it impracticable. The current rendered footing
impossible, so all the work had to be done from above. Wet wood
gripped the long saws vice-like, so that a man's utmost strength
could scarcely budge them. The water deadened the force of axe-
blows. Nevertheless, with the sure persistence of the riverman,
they held to it. Orde, watching them a few moments, satisfied
himself that they would succeed, and so departed up river to take
charge of the rear.

This crew he found working busily among some overflowed woods. They
were herding the laggards of the flock. The subsidence of the water
consequent upon the opening of the sluice-gate had left stranded and
in shallows many hundreds of the logs. These the men sometimes,
waist deep in the icy water, owing to the extreme inequality of the
bottom, were rolling over and over with their peavies until once
more they floated. Some few the rivermen were forced to carry
bodily, ten men to a side, the peavies clamped in as handles. When
once they were afloat, the task became easier. From the advantage
of deadwood, stumps, or other logs the "sackers" pushed the unwieldy
timbers forward, leaping, splashing, heaving, shoving, until at last
the steady current of the main river seized the logs and bore them
away. With marvellous skill they topped the dripping, bobby,
rolling timbers, treading them over and over, back and forth, in
unconscious preservation of equilibrium.

There was a good deal of noise and fun at the rear. The crew had
been divided, and a half worked on either side the river. A rivalry
developed as to which side should advance fastest in the sacking.
It became a race. Momentary success in getting ahead of the other
fellow was occasion for exultant crowing, while a mishap called
forth ironic cheers and catcalls from the rival camp. Just as Orde
came tramping up the trail, one of the rivermen's caulks failed to
"bite" on an unusually smooth, barked surface. His foot slipped;
the log rolled; he tried in vain to regain his balance, and finally
fell in with a heavy splash.

The entire river suspended work to send up a howl of delight. As
the unfortunate crawled out, dripping from head to foot, he was
greeted by a flood of sarcasm and profane inquiry that left no room
for even his acknowledged talents of repartee. Cursing and ashamed,
he made his way ashore over the logs, spirting water at every step.
There he wrung out his woollen clothes as dry as he could, and
resumed work.

Hardly had Orde the opportunity to look about at the progress
making, however, before he heard his name shouted from the bank.
Looking up, to his surprise he saw the solemn cook waving a frantic
dish-towel at him. Nothing could induce the cook to attempt the
logs.

"What is it, Charlie?" asked Orde, leaping ashore and stamping the
loose water from his boots.

"It's all off," confided the cook pessimistically. "It's no good.
He's stopped us now."

"What's off? Who's stopped what?"

"Reed. He's druv the men from the dam with a shotgun. We might as
well quit."

"Shotgun, hey!" exclaimed Orde. "Well, the old son of a gun!" He
thought a moment, his lips puckered as though to whistle; then, as
usual, he laughed amusedly. "Let's go take a look at the army,"
said he.

He swung away at a round pace, followed rather breathlessly by the
cook. The trail led through the brush across a little flat point,
up over a high bluff where the river swung in, down to another
point, and across a pole trail above a marsh to camp.

A pole trail consists of saplings laid end to end, and supported
three or four feet above wet places by means of sawbuck-like
structures at their extremities. To a river-man or a tight-rope
dancer they are easy walks. All others must proceed cautiously in
contrite memory of their sins.

Orde marched across the first two lengths confidently enough. Then
he heard a splash and lamentations. Turning, he perceived Charlie,
covered with mud, in the act of clambering up one of the small
trestles.

"Ain't got no caulks!" ran the lamentations. "The ---- of a ---- of
a pole-trail, anyways!"

He walked ahead gingerly, threw his hands aloft, bent forward, then
suddenly protruded his stomach, held out one foot in front of him,
spasmodically half turned, and then, realising the case hopeless,
wilted like a wet rag, to clasp the pole trail both by arm and leg.
This saved him from falling off altogether, but swung him
underneath, where he hung like the sloths in the picture-books. A
series of violent wriggles brought him, red-faced and panting,
astride the pole, whence, his feelings beyond mere speech, he sadly
eyed his precious derby, which lay, crown up, in the mud below.

Orde contemplated the spectacle seriously.

"Sorry I haven't got time to enjoy you just now, Charlie," he
remarked. "I'd take it slower, if I were you."

He departed, catching fragments of vows anent never going on any
more errands for nobody, and getting his time if ever again he went
away from his wanigan.

Orde stopped short outside the fringe of brush to utter another
irrepressible chuckle of amusement.

The centre of the dam was occupied by Reed. The old man was still
in full regalia, his plug hat fuzzier than ever, and thrust even
farther back on his head, his coat-tails and loose trousers flapping
at his every movement as he paced back and forth with military
precision. Over his shoulder he carried a long percussion-lock
shotgun. Not thirty feet away, perched along the bank, for all the
world like a row of cormorants, sat the rivermen, watching him
solemnly and in silence.

"What's the matter?" inquired Orde, approaching.

The old man surveyed him with a snort of disgust.

"If the law of the land don't protect me, I'll protect myself, sir,"
he proclaimed. "I give ye fair warning! I ain't a-going to have my
property interfered with no more."

"But surely," said Orde, "we have a right to run our logs through.
It's an open river."

"And hev ye been running your logs through?" cried the old man
excitedly. "Hev ye? First off ye begin to tear down my dam; and
then, when the river begins a-roarin' and a-ragin' through, then you
tamper with my improvements furthermore, a-lowerin' the gate and
otherwise a-modifyin' my structure."

Orde stepped forward to say something further. Immediately Reed
wheeled, his thumb on the hammer.

"All right, old Spirit of '76," replied Orde. "Don't shoot; I'll
come down."

He walked back to the waiting row, smiling quizzically.

"Well, you calamity howlers, what do you think of it?"

Nobody answered, but everybody looked expectant.

"Think he'd shoot?" inquired Orde of Tom North.

"I know he would," replied North earnestly. "That crazy-headed kind
are just the fellers to rip loose."

"I think myself he probably would," agreed Orde.

"Surely," spoke up Newmark, "whatever the status of the damage
suits, you have the legal right to run your logs."

Orde rolled a quizzical eye in his direction.

"Per-fect-ly correct, son," he drawled, "but we're engaged in the
happy occupation of getting out logs. By the time the law was all
adjusted and a head of steam up, the water'd be down. In this game,
you get out logs first, and think about law afterward."

"How about legal damages?" insisted Newmark.

"Legal damages!" scoffed Orde. "Legal damages! Why, we count legal
damages as part of our regular expenses--like potatoes. It's lucky
it's so," he added. "If anybody paid any attention to legal
technicalities, there'd never be a log delivered. A man always has
enemies.

"Well, what are you going to do?" persisted Newmark.

Orde thrust back his felt hat and ran his fingers through his short,
crisp hair.

"There you've got me," he confessed, "but, if necessary, we'll pile
the old warrior."

He walked to the edge of the dam and stood looking down current.
For perhaps a full minute he remained there motionless, his hat
clinging to one side, his hand in his hair. Then he returned to the
grimly silent rivermen.

"Boys," he commanded briefly, "get your peavies and come along."

He led the way past the mill to the shallows below.

"There's a trifle of wading to do," he announced. Bring down two
logs--fairly big--and hold them by that old snag," he ordered.
"Whoa-up! Easy! Hold them end on--no, pointing up stream--fix 'em
about ten foot apart--that's it! George, drive a couple of stakes
each side of them to hold 'em. Correct! Now, run down a couple
dozen more and pile them across those two--side on to the stream, of
course. Roll 'em up--that's the ticket!"

Orde had been splashing about in the shallow water, showing where
each timber was to be placed. He drew back, eyeing the result with
satisfaction. It looked rather like a small and bristly pier.

Next he cast his eye about and discovered a partially submerged
boulder on a line with the newly completed structure. Against this
he braced the ends of two more logs, on which he once more caused to
be loaded at right angles many timbers. An old stub near shore
furnished him the basis of a third pier. He staked a thirty-inch
butt for a fourth; and so on, until the piers, in conjunction with
the small centre jam already mentioned, extended quite across the
river.

All this was accomplished in a very short time, and immediately
below the mill, but beyond sight from the sluice-gate of the dam.

"Now, boys," commanded Orde, "shove off some shore logs, and let
them come down."

"We'll have a jam sure," objected Purdy stupidly.

"No, my son, would we?" mocked Orde. "I surely hope not!"

The stray logs floating down with the current the rivermen caught
and arranged to the best possible advantage about the improvised
piers. A good riverman understands the correlation of forces
represented by saw-logs and water-pressure. He knows how to look
for the key-log in breaking jams; and by the inverse reasoning, when
need arises he can form a jam as expertly as Koosy-oonek himself--
that bad little god who brings about . "Don Quixote and the
windmills!" Then he added vindictively, "The old fool!" although,
of course, the drive was not his personal concern.

Only Orde seemed to see the other side. And on Orde the
responsibility, uncertainty, and vexation had borne most heavily,
for the success of the undertaking was in his hands. With a few
quick leaps he had gained the old man's side.

"Look here, Reed," he said kindly, "you can't break this jam. Come
ashore now, and leies. It was managed by Charlie and his two cookees by
means of pike-poles and a long sweep at either end. The pike-poles
assured progress when the current slacked; the sweeps kept her head-
on when drifting with the streamthe disagreeable and undesired--
"who hides our pipes, steals our last match, and brings rain on the
just when they want to go fishing."

So in ten seconds after the shore logs began drifting down from
above, the jam was taking shape. Slowly it formed, low and broad.
Then, as the water gathered pressure, the logs began to slip over
one another. The weight of the topmost sunk those beneath to the
bed of the stream. This to a certain extent dammed back the water.
Immediately the pressure increased. More logs were piled on top.
The piers locked the structure. Below the improvised dam the water
fell almost to nothing, and above it, swirling in eddies, grumbling
fiercely, bubbling, gurgling, searching busily for an opening, the
river, turned back on itself, gathered its swollen and angry forces.

"That will do, boys," said Orde with satisfaction.

He led the way to the bank and sat down. The men followed his
example. Every moment the water rose, and each instant, as more
logs came down the current, the jam became more formidable.

"Nothing can stand that pressure," breathed Newmark, fascinated.

"The bigger the pressure the tighter she locks," replied Orde,
lighting his pipe.

The high bank where the men sat lay well above the reach of the
water. Not so the flat on which stood Reed's mill. In order to
take full advantage of the water-power developed by the dam, the old
man had caused his structure to be built nearly at a level with the
stream. Now the river, backing up, rapidly overflowed this flat.
As the jam tightened by its own weight and the accumulation of logs,
the water fairly jumped from the lowest floor of the mill to the one
above.

Orde had not long to wait for Reed's appearance. In less than five
minutes the old man descended on the group, somewhat of his martial
air abated, and something of a vague anxiety manifest in his eye.

"What's the matter here?" he demanded.

"Matter?" inquired Orde easily. "Oh, nothing much, just a little
jam."

"But it's flooding my mill!"

"So I perceive," replied Orde, striking a match.

"Well, why don't you break it?"

"Not interested."

The old warrior ran up the bank to where he could get a good view of
his property. The water was pouring into the first-floor windows.

"Here!" he cried, running back. "I've a lot of grain up-stairs.
It'll be ruined!"

"Not interested," repeated Orde.

Reed was rapidly losing control of himself.

"But I've got a lot of money invested here!" he shouted. "You
miserable blackguard, you're ruining me!"

Orde replaced his pipe.

Reed ran back and forth frantically, disappeared, returned bearing
an antiquated pike-pole, and single-handed and alone attacked the
jam!

Astonishment and delight held the rivermen breathless for a moment.
Then a roar of laughter drowned even the noise of the waters. Men
pounded each other on the back, rolled over and over, clutching
handfuls of earth, struggled weak and red-faced for breath as they
saw against the sky-line of the bristling jam the lank, flapping
figure with the old plug hat pushing frantically against the
immovable statics of a mighty power. The exasperation of delay, the
anxiety lest success be lost through the mulish and narrow-minded
obstinacy of one man, the resentment against another obstacle not to
be foreseen and not to be expected in a task redundantly supplied
with obstacles of its own--these found relief at last.

"By Jove!" breathed Newmark softly to himselft up. You'll kill yourself."

Reed turned to him, a wild light in his eye.

"Break it!" he pleaded. "You're ruining me. I've got all my money
in that mill."

"Well," said Orde, "we've got a lot of money in our logs too. You
haven't treated us quite right."

Reed glanced frantically toward the flood up stream.

"Come," said Orde, taking him gently by the arm. "There's no reason
you and I shouldn't get along together all right. Maybe we're both
a little hard-headed. Let's talk it over."

He led the old man ashore, and out of earshot of the rivermen.

At the end of ten minutes he returned.

"War's over, boys!" he shouted cheerfully. "Get in and break that
jam."

At once the crew swarmed across the log barrier to a point above the
centre pier. This they attacked with their peavies,.

Charlie's temperament was pessimistic at best. When the wanigan was
to be moved, he rose fairly to the heights of what might be called
destructive prophecy.

The packing began before the men had finished breakfast. Shortly
after daylight the wanigan, pushed strongly from shore by the pike-
poles, was drifting toward the chute. When the heavy scow
threatened to turn side-on, the sweeps at either end churned the
water frantically in an endeavour to straighten her out. Sometimes,
by a rolling the top
logs off into the current below. In less than no time they had torn
out quite a hole in the top layer. The river rushed through the
opening. Immediately the logs in the wings were tumbled in from
either side. At first the men had to do all of the work, but soon
the river itself turned to their assistance. Timbers creaked and
settled, or rose slightly buoyant as the water loosened the tangle.
Men trod on the edge of expectation. Constantly the logs shifted,
and as constantly the men shifted also, avoiding the upheavals and
grindings together, wary eyes estimating the correlation of the
forces into whose crushing reach a single misstep would bring them.
The movement accelerated each instant, as the music of the play
hastens to the climax. Wood fibres smashed. The whole mass seemed
to sink down and forward into a boiling of waters. Then, with a
creak and a groan, the jam moved, hesitated, moved again; finally,
urged by the frantic river, went out in a majestic crashing and
battering of logs.

At the first movement Newmark expected the rivermen to make their
escape. Instead, they stood at attention, their peavies poised,
watching cat-eyed the symptoms of the break. Twice or thrice
several of the men, observing something not evident to Newmark's
unpractised eye, ran forward, used their peavies vigorously for a
moment or so, and stood back to watch the result. Only at the very
last, when it would seem that some of them must surely he caught,
did the river-jacks, using their peavy-shafts as balancing poles,
zigzag calmly to shore across the plunging logs. Newmark seemed
impressed.

"That was a close shave," said he to the last man ashore.

"What?" inquired the riverman. "Didn't see it. Somebody fall
down?"

"Why, no," explained Newmark; "getting in off those logs without
getting caught."

"Oh!" said the man indifferently, turning away.

The going out of the jam drained the water from the lower floors of
the mill; the upp haven't lost much. Now get
a move on you and bail out. You've got to get over the shallows
while this head is on."

"That's all the thanks you get," grumbled Charlie to himself and the
other three as Orde moved away. "Work, slave, get up in the night,
drownd yourself--"

He happily discovered that the pails under the forward thwart had
not been carried away, and all started in to bail. It was a back-
breaking job, and consumed the greater part of two hoursed
below the gunwale. Zeke and his companion pulled spasmodically on
the sweeps. Charlie, having regaineer stories and the grain were still safe.

By evening the sluice-gate had been roughly provided with pole
guides down which to slide to the bed of the river. The following
morning saw the work going on as methodically as ever. During the
night a very good head of water had gathered behind the lowered
gate. The rear crew brought down the afterguard of logs to the
pond. The sluicers with their long pike-poles thrust the logs into
the chute. The jam crew, scattered for many miles along the lower
stretches, kept the drive going; running out over the surface of the
river like water-bugs to thrust apart logs threatening to lock;
leaning for hours on the shafts of their peavies watching
contemplatively the orderly ranks as they drifted by, sleepy, on the
bosom of the river; occasionally gathering, as the filling of the
river gave warning, to break a jam. By the end of the second day
the pond was clear, and as Charlie's wanigan was drifting toward the
chute, the first of Johnson's drive floated into the head of the
pond.

V

Charlie's wanigan, in case you do not happen to know what such a
thing may be, was a scow about twenty feet long by ten wide. It was
very solidly constructed of hewn timbers, square at both ends, was
inconceivably clumsy, and weighed an unbelievable number of pounds.
When loaded, it carried all the bed-rolls, tents, provisions,
cooking utensils, tools, and a chest of tobacco, clothes, and other
minor supplmisunderstanding, they worked against each other. Then
Charlie, raging from one to the other of his satellites, frothed and
roared commands and vituperations. His voice rose to a shriek. The
cookees, bewildered by so much violence, lost their heads
completely. Then Charlie abruptly fell to an exaggerated calm. He
sat down amidships on a pile of bags, and gazed with ostentatious
indifference out over the pond. Finally, in a voice fallen almost
to a whisper, and with an elaborate politeness, Charlie proffered a
request that his assistants acquire the sense God gave a rooster.
Newmark, who had elected to accompany the wanigan on its voyage,
evidently found it vastly amusing, for his eyes twinkled behind his
glasses. As the wanigan neared the sluice through which it must
shoot the flood-water, the excitement mounted to fever pitch. The
water boiled under the strokes of the long steering oars. The air
swirled with the multitude and vigour of Charlie's commands. As
many of the driving crew as were within distance gathered to watch.
It was a supreme moment. As Newmark looked at the smooth rim of the
water sucking into the chute, he began to wonder why he had come.

However, the noble ship was pointed right at last, and caught the
faster water head-on. Even Charlie managed to look cheerful for an
instant, and to grin at his passenger as he wiped his forehead with
a very old, red handkerchief.

"All right now," he shouted.

Zeke and his mate took in the oars. The wanigan shot forward below
the gate--

WHACK! BUMP! BANG! and the scow stopped so suddenly that its four
men plunged forward in a miscellaneous heap, while Zeke narrowly
escaped going overboard. Almost immediately the water, backed up
behind the stern, began to overflow into the boat. Newmark,
clearing his vision as well as he could for lack of his glasses, saw
that the scow had evidently run her bow on an obstruction, and had
been brought to a standstill square beneath the sluice-gate. Men
seemed to be running toward them. The water was beginning to flow
the entire length of the boat. Various lighter articles shot past
him and disappeared over the side. Charlie had gone crazy and was
grabbing at these, quite uselessly, for as fast as he had caught one
thing he let it go in favour of another. The cookees, retaining
some small degree of coolness, were pushing uselessly with pike-
poles.

Newmark had an inspiration. The more important matters, such as the
men's clothes-bags, the rolls of bedding, and the heavier supplies
of provisions, had not yet cut loose from their moorings, although
the rapid backing of the water threatened soon to convert the
wanigan into a chute for nearly the full volume of the current. He
seized one of the long oars, thrust the blade under the edge of a
thwart astern laid the shaft of the oar across the cargo, and by
resting his weight on the handle attempted to bring it down to bind
d his equanimity together with
his old brown derby, which he came upon floating sodden in an eddy,
marched up and down the broad gunwale with his pike-pole, thrusting
away such logs as threatened interference.

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