144 THE PINE-TREE, OR 



erate and calculating teamster may succeed in extricating his 

 horses, while a shiftless man will let them drown. A gentle- 

 man of my acquaintance harnessed a fine mare into a single 

 sled, loaded with provisions, which he sent by an Irishman up 

 into the woods to his logging-camps. "While passing the river, the 

 horse broke in, and, after struggling several hours, sank through 

 exhaustion and chill, and was drowned. 



In giving a brief account of the affair, Pat, evidently affected 

 by the disaster, observed, " Ah ! indade, sir, but she looked at me 

 very wishfully, indade she did, sir !" " But why did you not help 

 her, Patrick ?" " 'Dade, sir, an' didn't I put on the whip pretty 

 smartly, sure ?" 



It is quite common for drogcrs, as they are sometimes called, 

 to form a northern caravan, by congregating together in their 

 up-river tours to the number of twenty, and sometimes thirty 

 teams. Some of these are composed of two horses, and others 

 from four to six. Company, and mutual assistance in cases of 

 necessity, are the motives which unite them, and the difficulties 

 which they encounter often call into requisition this friendly in- 

 terference. 



I was once passing up the Penobscot in company with twenty 

 or thirty horse-teams, all loaded with supplies, immediately after 

 a thaw, which had so far wasted the snow that we were obliged 

 to leave the land road, and, at some risk, venture upon the ice, 

 although in many places it was thin, and covered with water to 

 the depth of two feet. 



It was deemed prudent to form a line with the teams at such 

 distances apart as would subject the ice to the pressure of one 

 team only on a given point, the whole preceded by a man with 

 ax in hand to test its capacity to bear the approaching load. In 

 some instances, where the current was stagnant, the ice was suf- 

 ficiently strong to bear us for a mile or two without much alter- 

 ation in our course. In places where the swiftness of the cur- 



