American Forestry 



VOL. XVIII 



DECEMBER, 1912 



No. 12 



RIVER DRIVING 



By W. R. Brown 



LIBRAJ 



^ew Y(j 



BOTANIC 

 OAKOli 



y^i^lIE latter part of April is a time 

 C^) of suppressed excitement from 

 ^^■*^ the {general mana.s^er down to the 

 last "river hog." At almost any mo- 

 ment over the 'phone may come a call 

 from some camp watch far up in the 

 wilderness that the ice is going out, the 

 streams are opening up and there is 

 a good "driving pitch" or "head of 

 water" bank full, which means that the 

 logs can be floated and men should be 

 rushed to take advantage of the freshet. 

 Word is quickly passed to walking 

 bosses, clerks, toters and wangin men, 

 and the various foremen start their 

 straw bosses on a hustle through the 

 boarding houses and saloons known as 

 "blind pigs," to gather up the "white 

 water" men for their particular 

 "wangin," and straighten out many a 

 timber jack, who for the last two or 

 three weeks, since returning from the 

 winter camps, has been industriously 

 liquifying his roll. As rolls are by this 

 time scarce, and borrowing precarious, 

 it is now only a question with "Jack" 

 whether to go with the short drive as a 

 "river hog" or "joker," and so return 

 in the minimum time to the Elyseum 

 Fields, or hire out as a crackerjack 

 "white water" man on the "long route." 

 Meanwhile a warm April drizzle falls 

 from under a leaden sky, and the news 

 spreads like "pay day" that there is 

 good driving on Kennebago. 



All the previous winter the silent 



flakes had been piling up a deep blanket 



of purest white under the thickly shaded 



^.^^ hillsides, and solid floors of ice had been 



r-accumulating back in the dismal swamps 



^as reservoirs for the coming flood. 



During the bright, sunny days of March 



j^^the warm breath of Spring came to 



touch and invisibly dissipate the great 

 drifts, and later a series of hot days 

 and warm nights in April breathed 

 deep upon the still white carpet in the 

 green woods, which could almost be 

 seen to settle into a litter-strewn yel- 

 lowish mass through which roots and 

 stones pushed their heads and the wet 

 branches of fallen trees glistened in the 

 sun. Each complaining, imprisoned 

 stream burst from its wintry sleep in a 

 torrent that rose and fell as the frost 

 of night succeeded the warmth of day, 

 and dashed away to the lakes or rivers 

 below, piling up sparkling w^alls of ice 

 along each bank. The logs piled in 

 deep tiers on the banks, or across the 

 icy back of the brook, tremble with fet- 

 tered energy, needing only a touch to 

 send them rolling downstream on the 

 breast of the rising torrent. From the 

 little stream they float to the larger 

 river, possibly across sveral lakes, and 

 finally, joined by many thousand more 

 from other tributaries, form one large 

 body in the still waters above some mill. 

 To gather them all safely in fills two 

 exciting months of the river driver's 

 life, and the moment for departure is 

 eagerly awaited. 



The expert driver is an interesting but 

 disappearing type of American fron- 

 tiersman. He first is seen as he sallies 

 forth from the company's store, where 

 he has been trusted for an outfit, sport- 

 ing a pair of laced shoes with long 

 caulks or spikes in the soles, to give a 

 footing on the rolling logs ; heavy pants 

 not yet "staggered" — that is, torn ofif 

 below the knee to afiford greater ease in 

 running about over the logs — and held 

 up by a brass-studded belt; a red flan- 

 nel shirt and felt hat, a meal sack 



757 



