METHODS OF LUMBEKING. 37 



breakfast, and be off on the road while the stars are still shining- clear 

 and cold in the winter sky. 



The average wages paid in the lumber camps of northern New York 

 run about $28 per month, including board, with a distinction in favor 

 of first-class men, to whom higher wages are paid. The jobbers are 

 quick to recognize a good hand, and a man is paid what he can earn. 



With the delivery of the stipulated number of logs at the river 

 bank the jobber has finished his contract and "goes to town" to set 

 tie up with his employer. The men have been paid off and have taken 

 their way to their homes or to some village, where too many of them 

 soon part with their hard-earned wages. Old grudges are fought out, 

 and not infrequently some luckless hero of the camp spends his vaca- 

 tion in the count}- jail. But as a class they are honest, brave, and 

 industrious, reflecting credit on the great industry with which their 

 life and labor are so closely identified. 



When the spring thaw, with its warm south winds and rains, begins 

 to loosen the ice in the upland streams and lakes, the boss river-driver 

 collects his crew of stalwart, daring men, and again they start for the 

 woods, where the thousands on thousands of logs are piled ready for 

 the spring flood. Before the ice has fairly ceased running the logs 

 are rolled into the water and the drive is on its way. Some of the 

 men are stationed along the shores to prevent the logs from lodging 

 or floating into ba} T s or setbacks; some stand at the heads of the bars 

 or islands, where, with pike-poles they shove off the logs that might 

 stop there and form a jam; others follow at the tail or rear of the 

 drive and clear up the shore of such pieces as may have drifted out of 

 the current and been left behind. Then there is the cook, most indis- 

 pensable of all, who follows in the rear along the bank, pitching his 

 tent from time to time in convenient places where the hungry crew 

 can get their meals. (PI. XV.) When the freshet is subsiding and 

 the water falling rapidly so that the logs stick on every bar and along 

 the shore, a splash dam is opened, and with the oncoming flood the 

 work is resumed with all its interesting, active scenes. 



At times, in some crooked, rock} T stream, a jam is formed and thou- 

 sands of logs are wedged fast in the channel, held back by some one 

 log firmly braced against an impediment. Then occurs a thrilling 

 scene as the foreman calls for volunteers to break the jam. There is 

 always a prompt response. Two or more daring fellows, impelled by 

 pride in their work, take their lives in their hands, and. with an ax 

 and handspikes, make their way over the treacherous logs to the head 

 of the jam. Behind them are thousands of logs, filling- the angry 

 stream from bank to bank, piled thickly to the bottom, in all shapes, 

 tossing, tumbling, and leaping in the air as tin 1 dammed -up torrent 

 forces them about in wild confusion. Beneath the men is the swaying, 

 locking, unstable mass, somewhere in. the midst of which is the log 



