2 74 REPORT OF THE 



With the delivery of the stipulated number of logs at the river bank the 

 jobber has finished his contract, and he " goes to town " to settle up with his 

 employer. The men have been paid off and have taken their way to their homes 

 or to some village, where too many of them soon part with their hard earned 

 wages in whiskey drinking and riotous scenes. Old grudges are fought out, and, 

 not infrequently, some luckless hero of the camp spends his vacation in the 

 county jail. As a class, however, they are honest, brave, and industrious, reflecting 

 credit on the great industry with which their life and labors are so closely identified. 



But the winter is soon past, and the spring thaw with its warm south winds 

 and rains is rapidly loosening the ice in the upland streams and lakes. The boss 

 river driver collects his crew of stalwart, daring men, and they again betake them- 

 selves to the woods, where the great piles of logs, thousands on thousands, are 

 ready for the spring flood. Before the ice has fairly ceased running, the logs 

 are rolled into the water and the log drive is on its way. Some of the men are 

 stationed along the shores to prevent the logs from lodging there, or floating into 

 the bays or set-backs; some stand at the head of the bars or islands, where, with 

 pike poles, they shove off the logs that might stop there and form a jam; others 

 follow at the tail of the drive and clear up the shore of such pieces as may have 

 drifted out of the current and been left behind. Then there is the cook, the 

 most indispensable of all, who follows along the bank, pitching his tent from time 

 to time in convenient places where the hungry crew can get their meals. When 

 the freshet is subsiding, and the Avater falling so rapidly that the logs stick on 

 every bar and along the shore, a splash dam is opened, and with the oncoming 

 flood the work is resumed with all its interesting active scenes. 



At times, in some crooked, rocky stream, a jam is formed, and thousands of logs 

 are wedged fast in the channel, held back by some one log firmly braced against 

 an impediment. Then occurs a thrilling scene, as the boss calls for volunteers to 

 break the jam. There is always a prompt response. One or more daring fellows, 

 impelled by pride in their work and love of applause, take their lives in their 

 hands, as with axe and handspike they leap over the treacherous logs and place 

 themselves at the head of the jam. Behind them are the thousands of logs, filling 

 the angry stream from bank to bank, piled thickly to the bottom, some of them 

 tossing, tumbling and leaping in air as the dammed up torrent forces them about 

 in wild confusion. Beneath them is the swaying, rocking, unstable mass, in which 

 is seen the log that forms the key to the position. The crew of drivers gather on 

 the banks below the jam, where they watch with intense eagerness and anxiety the 

 man who volunteers to cut or loosen this log. They note every stroke of the axe 



