RIVER DRIVING 



765 



... - 



LOGS ON THE ICE JUST BEFORE THE SPRING FRESHET. 



back of the jam, some of the men, to 

 celebrate their victory, like their Indian 

 ancestry of old, danced up and down 

 with yells of triumph before running 

 for the shore. 



Our force was divided into two 

 equal crews to take the rear on each 

 bank, and a shout would be exchanged 

 across the water as one crew passed the 

 other and obtained temporary advan- 

 tage. Behind all, in a bateau, the "rear" 

 boss, with a long pole over his arm, 

 caught any straggling logs and rescued 

 any stranded men and was relied on to 

 leave the shore clean as he passed. 



About eight o'clock, on a small 

 promontory which commanded the 

 river, a thin column of smoke was seen 

 ahead, showing where the "first lunch" 

 was pitched, and the clarion tones of the 

 cookee, in a prolonged tone, echoed, 

 first up and then down stream, for 

 "Lunch-o-o-o-n," and at once, from far 

 and near, his cry was carried along the 

 turns until the farthest man "tending 

 out" received the welcome news. Won- 

 derfully quick over logs and through 

 swamps, the men made their way to 

 where the steaming kettle of beans and 

 the buckets of biscuits and sweet- 



stuffs formed an inviting circle to their 

 hungry gaze, and, with hands and tin 

 plates heaped high and a cup full of tea 

 from the kettle of the ever-circulating 

 cookee, they throw themselves on the 

 ground and enjoy to the full a few 

 minutes of rest and the satisfaction of a 

 ravenous appetite. Then, when a pipe 

 was lighted and well going, the boss 

 first and the most ambitions second, 

 shoulder their cantdogs and file off 

 again to work. 



We had come two miles since carlv 

 dawn. Below was Ellingwood Falls, a 

 long, narrow gorge for a quarter of a 

 mile or more, whose ragged cliffs rose 

 sheer from where the water ran swift 

 as a sluice, and ragged boulders and 

 sharp turns, made famous for jams, 

 ended in a flat shallow at the foot. 

 Upon this, up-ended and hunched, logs 

 hung and gathered and <vfused to be 

 floated. Years befinv. "abutment 

 sheers" had lined t!u- wav and an 

 "apron dam" or two across -ome ugly 

 pools had served to mitigah- the worse 

 places, but most of these had long since 

 rotted or worn away, and, all together, 

 it was an ill-omened and treacherous 

 place. Tradition had it that one drive. 



