MAY-TIME IN THE FOREST 49 
was an everyday condition. Any man who 
changed his clothes because they were wet would 
be laughed out of camp. Poised on a single. log 
and balancing themselves with pick-poles or cant- 
dogs, they ran down through the whirling current, 
stamping their feet up and down as if dancing a 
Jig, as the stick rolled beneath them. 
The spring of 1903 was hard for the lumber 
industry. No rains came to keep the lakes at 
high level, and day by day the water dropped. 
Half-way between the upper and the lower lakes 
the stream ran for a short distance over a wide 
rocky ledge. In the space of fifty yards it dropped 
some ten feet, and over this pitch the water was 
spread very thin. At this point the logs were con- 
tinually hanging. Whenever a stick began to slow 
up, or twist about so that its end might be forced 
out on the bank, two or three men rushed into 
the rapid water and made the white spray fly, 
while with their cant-dogs they pried the log out 
into the centre of the stream. In spite of all they 
could do, the timber sometimes jammed on this 
ledge, and then from bank to bank the logs lay in a 
tangled mass like huge jackstraws. 
Here was danger; but without a moment’s hesi- 
tation the nimble-footed rivermen ran out upon 
the interwoven timber, and with poles and peavies 
tugged and heaved until the strain was lessened, 
