



American Forestry 



VOL. XVIII DECEMBER, 1912 No. 12 



RIVER DRIVING 



Bv W. R. BROWN 



latter part of April is a time touch and invisibly dissipate the great 



of suppressed excitement from drifts, and later a series of hot days 



the general manager down to the and warm nights in April breathed 



last "river hog." At almost any mo- deep upon the still white carpet in the 



ment over the 'phone may come a call green woods, which could almost be 



from some camp watch far up in the seen to settle into a litter-strewn yel- 



vvilderness that the ice is going out, the lowish mass through which roots and 



streams are opening up and there is stones pushed their heads and the wet 



a good "driving pitch" or "head of branches of fallen trees glistened in the 



water" bank full, which means that the sun. Each complaining, imprisoned 



[ogs can be floated and men should be stream burst from its wintry sleep in a 



rushed to take advantage of the freshet, torrent that rose and fell as the frost 



Word is quickly passed to walking of night succeeded the warmth of day, 



bosses, clerks, toters and wangin men, and dashed away to the lakes or rivers 



and the various foremen start their below, piling up sparkling walls of ice 



straw bosses on a hustle through the along each bank. The logs piled in 



boarding houses and saloons known as deep tiers on the banks, or across the 



"blind pigs," to gather up the "white icy back of the brook, tremble with fet- 



water" men for their particular tered energy, needing only a touch to 



: 'wangin," and straighten out many a send them rolling downstream on the 



timber jack, who for the last two or breast of the rising torrent. From the 



three weeks, since returning from the little stream they float to the larger 



winter camps, has been industriously river, possibly across sveral lakes, and 



liquifying his roll. As rolls are by this finally, joined by many thousand more 



time scarce, and borrowing precarious, from other tributaries, form one large 



it is now only a question with "Jack" body in the still waters above some mill, 



whether to go with the short drive as a To gather them all safely in fills two 



"river hog" or "joker," and so return exciting months of the river driver's 



in the minimum time to the Elyseum life, and the moment for departure is 



Fields, or hire out as a crackerjack eagerly awaited. 



"\vhite water" man on the "long route." The expert driver is an ink resting but 

 Meanwhile a warm April drizzle falls disappearing type of American fnni- 

 from under a leaden sky, and the news tiersman. He first is seen as lie sallies 

 spreads like "pay day" that there is forth from the company's store, where 

 ?ood driving on Kennebago. lie has been trusted for an ouiiU. sport- 

 All the previous winter the silent ing a pair of laced sh<>c^ with Ion- 

 flakes had been piling up a deep blanket caulks or spikes in the soles, to give a 

 }f purest white under the thickly shaded footing on the rolling lugs ; heavy punts 

 hillsides, and solid floors of ice had been not yet "staggered"- that is, torn off 

 accumulating back in the dismal swamps below the knee to afford greater ease in 

 as reservoirs for the coming flood, running about over the logs and held 

 During the bright, sunny days of March up by a brass-studded belt ; a red flan- 

 the warm breath of Spring came to nel shirt and felt hat, a meal sack 



757 



