RIVER DRIVING 



759 



to chance, and the ever-hovering sable 

 wings of death. A day with the river 

 drivers at this time may be full of inci- 

 dent, and we have chosen as character- 

 istic, and the cause of much comment, 

 a race between the Swift and Dead 

 Diamond drives in the year of 1900. 



It was betimes that gray morning that 

 we rolled over in our warm spreads to 

 the prolonged and artistic "T-U-R-N 

 O-U-T" of the "cookee," that omni- 

 present assistant to the cook, which 

 would have shamed the Angel Gabriel, 

 as it swelled out into a high-pitched 

 scream. 



Outside the big open fire was crack- 

 ling loudly, and the gruff comments and 

 yawns of the men mingled with the rat- 

 tle of tin dishes. Although assured of 

 the lateness of the hour by the tin clock 

 in the cook's tent, we could just see a 

 thin, white streak of dawn growing 

 visible in the starry heavens above the 

 black cathedral spires fretting the ridge 

 of the eastern hills. This incident of 

 the clock, set ahead quietly by the cook 

 the previous evening, although time- 



honored and well known to all, evinced 

 on the part of the boss the evident 

 desire to avoid the appearance of 

 crowding, but did not prevent a thin, 

 gray, crescent moon from throwing her 

 frosty light over a scene not lacking in 

 the elements of the picturesque. Our 

 tents had been pitched in a gorge 

 between two hills which rose above us, 

 silent and mystical in their primeval 

 forest vastness. The little river, in dim 

 outline beneath us, flowed through a 

 now disused dam, whose posts and piers 

 were faintly visible in the silvery mist 

 between the cliff walls, where the water 

 gurgled and boiled. Our tents, four in 

 number, stood around an open fire, each 

 shining white and faintly luminous, like 

 some spectral thing, by the dim rays of 

 a single lantern. In sharp relief, and 

 ruddy against the fire, the various pots 

 and kettles of that autocrat, the cook, 

 boiled and simmered on many jointed 

 "S" hooks at various heights above the 

 blaze, while at each side tin bakers filled 

 with browning pans of warm biscuit 

 caught the full glow of the ruddy logs, 



A "HEAD" OF WATER FROM THE DAM. 



