848 
FOREST t A ND S TREAM.* 
4 
like 3t, 1904. 
nigh wheeler, started away along the road soon after 
the sawyers had gone to their work. It was a fine 
woods' road — level, dry, and there had been little cut- 
ting of roots and small trees necessary, for it was easy 
to drive, winding and dodging among the trees. 
The mules were fast walkers, and were guided by 
bridles and the voice. If anything was in the way the 
wheels hit it with a crash and climbed over the top, or 
slid off to one side in a fashion that would have racked 
an Adirondack wagon from axle to tongue. The 
swamper followed after with an ax and a swamp hook. 
There quarters of a mile back the wagon turned into 
some cane, and here was a tree, cut into three logs, and 
opposite the butt piece, ten feet from it, the wagon was 
stopped. 
It was a five-ton log, fiat on the ground; but five tons 
was only a circumstance to the swamp woodsman. The 
swamper had an iron hook, which he hooked low on 
the big log on the side from the wagon. The mule 
driver unhooked his three leaders and drew them up 
opposite the log on the far side of the wagon. With 
a "cross-haul chain" the log was started up two big 
skids, running at a steep angle from the nigh side of 
the log to the wagon bolsters. The bed chains, one to 
each bolster, were drawn under the log by the swamper, 
and then the log was allowed to roll back on them to 
the ground. Sometimes the swamp hook slips when 
the swamper is reaching for the bed chains, and his arm 
and shoulder are crushed into the ground. A pulley 
block was then hooked to the crossed bed chains, and 
the mules were hitched to one end of the i^-inch rope 
with which the block was threaded. 
"Gee up, Juke — gee yup!" the darkey said. And in 
ten seconds the mules had rolled the log up the skids 
to the middle of the bolsters and made fast. An Adiron- 
dack woodsman would have built a skidway four rods 
long and rolled the log up on the wagon by hand, till 
he learned, or contrived better. On the other hand, the 
swamp woodsman loads a ten-inch persimmon log with 
his three mules, though an Adirondack hick would lift 
the log in his arms before going to that trouble. 
The logs were got together at the river bank, in order 
to load them on a barge reputed to carry 400,000 feet 
of logs — say 20,000 tons. Had the logs been destined 
for rafts, it would have been necessary to skid them 
clear of the ground, otherwise they would sink from 
the weight of the moisture acquired by contact with 
the ground, which would exceed the evaporation. One 
tree in twelve of gum floats, the others sink, unless 
dried from thirty to sixty days. The logs are loaded 
on the barge with a derrick. 
They have a fashion of logging in the Bottoms dur- 
ing the overflow that has one analogy with logging in 
the deep snow. It leaves high stumps, according to the 
stage of the water when the logging is done, but here 
the resemblance ceases. Instead of going to the trees 
on snowshoes, dugout canoes are used, and one can't 
stamp a hard place in the water, as in the snow, for 
standing on. The dugout is what the chopper stands 
in. He runs the canoe among the trees, sinking his ax 
blade into the likely ones, sounding them for shakes 
and cutting out chips, which, if they float, indicate that 
the tree will float, too. He fells the tree and cuts it 
up into long logs. These are run to a "right of way" 
or "float road," twelve feet wide, cut through from the 
section to be lumbered to the bayou or river, where 
the raft is to be made. The right of way is similar to 
a winter road, in that it is made in fall or summer for 
another season of the year. In the bottoms water 
covers the ground as snow does in the mountains. The 
right of way is straight, with stumps carefully cleared 
away on the cane ridges, lest the overflow happens to 
be a low one. The logs are poled into the right of way 
and there spliced four abreast and run end on along 
the right of way, other logs being hitched to them till 
perhaps a mile of logs are "cribbed and tailed"— cross 
binders and sticks being spiked to logs to hold them 
end to end, and fenders outside if the float road is 
crooked, or pretty narrow. 
The tiers are poled and run out to the rafting place, 
and the tiers cut loose from each other and laid side by 
side till a block of fifty logs is formed. On the St. Francis 
these blocks are turned loose with the current and 
picked up at the sawmills as they come along by little 
gasolene boats. Some rafts are taken down with sweeps 
on them — some small logger having a bunch to sell — 
and then sweeps are used to steer it through. 
Wooden pins, fitting loose in the sapling-tree splice 
and tight in the log, are used to bind the logs together, 
unless iron spikes or chain dogs are used — the latter 
methods being modern and quicker. 
When the mud gets deep, and there is no water to 
float the logs, a lizard is used to drag the logs out — a 
Y-fork of a tree, nine feet long, with a cross-bar on 
the V'part to hold the log. A yoke of cattle are hitched 
to the tail, a log rolled on the lizard and chained there, 
and away it goes. The way the lizard plunges down into 
mud holes, following the oxen, "the log plumb under 
sometimes," would be a sight for those drivers who 
think they know mud from an axle-deep experience. 
The lizard is the last resort of bad weather. In between 
are mud-sleds — bob-sleds, hewed out of bent sticks. 
Most remarkable of all, however, were the "carry-logs" 
— sulkies with wheels twelve feet in diameter—which 
were backed over the stump to get to the log, if that 
was handiest; and standing astride the log, chains were 
rigged and a lever applied, by which one end of the log 
was lifted clear of the ground, whereupon .the ten or 
twelve oxen walked away with it — a spectacle growing 
more and more rare, and very seldom seen now in the 
bottoms. • 
I went out to see the sawyers at work, the boss in- 
dicating the direction so well, by means of a fence 
corner, a path and a "neighborhood road," that I found 
them without difficulty, and watched them at work. I 
noted, among other things, that they carried a wooden 
water keg, from which they drank from the side through 
a little hole that was corked, and an air-hole also corked 
till the thirsty came around, as indicated by the washed 
place three inches across the center of the bung. 
It was about three-quarters of a mile from the sawyers 
to the camp, and I left them about 11 o'clock to return. 
"The path yonder is the way to camp," one of the 
sawyers indicated, and I found a path which led in the 
direction that it seemed right to go. 
It was an interesting chopping to me— the smallest 
stumps were larger than the largest I had ever seen 
m the Adirondacks. The new wood, log-ends and 
stumps-tops could be seen far among the trees. The 
trees still standing were monsters, with black hollows 
m them, and branches two feet through, broken off 
and lying on the ground. I looked up and looked 
down— saw a red squirrel big as a small dog, and half 
a hundred hogs rooting around. A great bird, standing- 
lengthwise on a sapling that sagged beneath its weight 
—curved bill, white head and dark mottled plumage, 
underneath light-colored, an eagle— attracted my at- 
tention, and 1 sneaked around in an effort to get its 
picture. 
I came to where logs had been hauled, noted that the 
wide wagon tires make but faint impression on the 
ground and left the road where the path did and 
directly came to a canebrake, with cane twelve feet 
high, into which the path led. In time I came to a 
bayou that was dry, and crossed it into another cane- 
brake, finding a narrow-tired wagon track at the far 
side of the bayou, and this was going the wrong way 
from my direction, and so I left it and followed a cow- 
path, having missed my path just a little way back, 
right where I knew it was. Directly my cow- 
path forked, and I took the biggest one, and this 
forked, and the one I took landed me in a canebrake, 
so I turned and went back and took the other one, 
which disintegrated in some nice open woods. I had 
the sun and my watch to go by, so I started east, being 
on the west side of the river, and went a few hundred 
yards, coming to low ground, which must be the river 
of course. It didn't look quite right. I hadn't seen 
any such place as I came down the river, so probably 
I was below camp; but I would go over and take a 
look at the river anyhow, to make sure. I went and 
took the look, first traveling a a hundred yards through 
some/ cypress undergrowth and the peculiar root- 
growths, called cypress "knees." 
They were from thumb-high to waist-high; but I 
finally got to a place where I could look beyond. I 
didn't see the river. It was a lake with a shore on the 
other side much further away than the length of a still- 
water. I took a careless look at the features, and ex- 
amined the ground to see if I had left a visible back- 
track. I hadn't. I had started in time for dinner. It 
was now considerably after dinner time — 12:30 o'clock. 
I concluded I'd better go back. I went west, accord- 
ing to the sun, and found some browsing mules. I sat 
down and looked at them, and wondered how long it 
would be before they'd make up their minds to go home. 
They looked at me, wiggled their ears and looked 
at each other. I had seen cows go home when yelled 
at. I started to yell, but changed my mind. They don't 
use the same sounds in driving mules that they do 
cows, or even horses. Mules are knowing, and I 
wouldn't make myself ridiculous trying to drive ten or 
fifteen mules toward somewhere I didn't know where. 
I walked around the mules, found a little path which 
they'd evidently followed through some cane. 
Cane grows tall like grass. It is from the size of 
pipe stems, for which switch cane is used, to the size 
of a linen thread spool. I felt like a mouse in a hay- 
field.. Never had I been in such a thicket. The mule 
tracks left the trail I was trying to follow, and soon 
I came to a place where there wasn't any trail. The 
mules had come into the cane to browse on the switches. 
But I kept on straight ahead, for that seemed the right 
direction to go, only to find myself in taller cane- 
cane that was so high as to cast a deep, well-like 
shadow around me. When I finally turned to go back, 
I found that the cane had closed in around me, and go 
which way I would. A glance skyward showed a 
circular hole, round which the cane gathered in long- 
leaved stems; when I walked, the opening moved 
hither with me. 
Then, curiously enough, a kind of panic struck me. 
There was something awful in being closed in by 
yielding green bars. I tried to bull through— anyway 
to get out of that cell. For a time I made fair progress, 
and then little green, briared vines coiled around my 
legs and seized my coat with a spiny clutch. I tripped, 
plunged headlong, but did not fall. The masses of cane 
would neither let me stand up or fall down. A few yards 
of travel sapped my strength, and for a little while I 
wondered how long it would take me to get out of that 
brake. 
It was a needless fear which I experienced in the cane. 
The sun was shining, and I was enough of a swampman 
by this time to recognize that this wasn't a large cane- 
brake from the look of the forest. It was only a few 
hundred yards long and a hundred wide at the most, but 
it was quite large enough to be satisfactory to one who 
didn't know where he would be even if out of the cane. 
There was one especially bad place in the brake, where 
the wind had full sweep at it along the back of the ridge. 
Here the cane was laid like a wheat field. It was utterly 
impossible to force my way across the leaning stalks. 
I turned back, took a course by the sun, and in a few, 
minutes came into switch cane, where I could see over 
the tops of the stalk heads.. 
For the first time I was in strange woods without my 
compass, so it was necessary to put into practice some 
of the hints in regard to finding directions by means of 
my watch. Somewhere to the west' was a faint wagon 
trace, and toward this I made my way through the open 
forest, careful to not overrun the track. I found it, and 
with some difficulty followed it to the left, for I was 
hopelessly confused as to the direction of camp. I had 
gone perhaps half a mile, when I heard the tread of a 
heavy animal behind me. It proved to be a youth on 
muleback. The youth and mule looked at me with undis- 
guised interest, and I at them gratefully. 
"Howdy?" the youth asked. 
"Feeling bad," I answered. "I lost a lumber camp 
somewhere— Wheeler's camp. Which way is it from 
here?" " ' ' 
The rider turned half way round in his saddle, and 
looked along his back trail for a, full half minute, and then 
turned to look at me again. Then, settled in his saddle 
once -more, he said: . 
"You say you lost Wheeler's camp? Well, paw and 
me hauled two logs right to it this mohnin'. We had a 
narrow-tired wagon— see these tracks?" 
I see them— had my eye on them for 'most a mile." 
bo-o! Had yo eye on them, eh? Well, you was 
piking the wrong way, strangeh, yassah. Yo' follow them 
back. 1 hey cross a byoo yonway, and there's big wagon 
tracks theh. Yo want to keep the narrow ones, though. 
I hey 11 take yo' right to camp." 
"You say they will?" 
'Yassah, they shore will." 
"I'm a heap obliged to you. Reckon I won't lose them 
tracks — no sir !" 
"I reckon not." 
"Good-by." 
"Good-by." 
Beyond the dry bayou I found the wide-tired tracks, 
but didnt lose the narrow ones. I came into the camp 
late m the afternoon, and made a handsome meal from 
the uiscuits, hominy, coffee, etc., of the cold dinner. I 
split some wood for the tent stove, and as it grew dark 
listened to one of the darkies who was coming with a 
song on his lips as he walked along the camp trail The 
very best thing that can be said of a negro is that he 
sings at the end of a hard day's work. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
An Historic Letter. 
A much-traveled sportsman and engineer on the 
Irans-Baikal, at the village of Bolcherinskoe, named 
Kpylekebich, received me very kindly one black Sunday 
night in August— so black that my white costume ap- 
peared ghost-like as. I walked down the middle of the 
solitary straggling village street, and the leading horses 
ot a passing caravan shied at the sight, and completely 
overturned his telega and its half ton of freight. It is 
said that some human eyes can see in the dark— after 
getting accustomed to it— as in the day, but this is fiction. 
A rapidly approaching storm-cloud was, a minute later, 
moving through the sky directly over the village, and 
this made things oh, so black! My eyes— habituated 
already to the dark for a couple of hours— could not 
penetrate that. Still, I continued cautiously along for 
fear of walking into the ditch lining each side of the 
roadway. All the village shutters were closed, so not a 
light was visible. I thought I heard on one side a low 
whispering, and approached a couple of paces toward 
whence the sound proceeded to inquire for a friend's 
house, when suddenly there was a sound as of the sudden 
flight of a startled covey— a score of boys had leaped 
up and darted helter-skelter away, paying no heed to the 
question I sent after them. I shall never forget that 
humorous incident. 
Next moment a blizzard seemed to strike the village; 
I closed my eyes instinctively during a few steps to keep 
out the whirlwind of blinding— as I thought— dust ; 
opened them, when lo! all was light (comparatively). I 
could, for the rest of the walk, see everything, even to, 
in the distance, the two-storied log-house of my host— 
the only one in the place. What do you suppose had 
happened? That swiftly-moving cloud had shed a thin 
layer of snow over the village, and the reflection ren- 
dered all visible. The utility of snow ! Never in my life 
did I realize so much the illuminative effects of snow. 
For, though this was late August, you occasionally get 
snow this early in Cibiria— with ice an inch thick by the 
morning. More to the north you will even have, some- 
times, quickly-melting snow in July. 
Arrived at the house of Kpylekebich, I presented my 
circular letter, which was scarcely necessary, as a Polak 
is the hospitality of the Slav race; and, on the morrow, 
received from him an introductory letter for his cousin 
at Warszawa— about 8.000 versti (over 5,000 miles) dis- 
tant. This was a Pan Shrynecki. It took me eighteen 
months to deliver that letter! And yet it was traveling 
to its destination little by little almost every day, as the 
survey slowly proceeded with its work from the Pacific 
to the Atlantic. That little historic letter went through 
one Cibirian and one Russian winter, crossed three moun- 
tain ranges, journeyed over 3,000 miles of snow-covered 
step, crossed rivers "too numerous to mention," and 
all the time snugly maintained at about even temperature 
in my pocketbook. 
The carriage was with it! When finally it was de- 
livered, one and one-half years after date, its recipient 
had to think out about a letter he had received from his 
cousin, by post, nearly eighteen months previously, noti- 
fying him the missive was en route. He had almost for- 
gotten the incident, having about concluded it would 
never reach reach him. However, that billet secured for 
me a cordial reception and a platonic friendship which 
has been a consolation ever since. 
Another letter I had from the Ycypi River, beyond the 
Amur, to Peterburg, took 19 months to deliver; but it 
did not go through the travel vicissitudes of the Kpyleke- 
bich-Shrynecki letter. One introductory missive I car- 
ried from Gospodin Hikolaef, of Telma, near Ipkytck, to 
Kniaz (Prince) Tpybitckoi, of Tomck, about 1,000 miles, 
was a disappointment. I had arrived in Tomck on a 
Saturday ; made purchases while all the places were open, 
and on Sunday _ morning left the hotel to deliver the 
letter to the Kniaz. It was an icy January morning, and 
I walked five versti over the snowed roads on the hunt 
for the Tpybitckoi domicile. He received me, "alright." 
We had a little chat, asked what he could do for me, to 
which I replied in the negative, and offered me — a glass 
of cold water! And I had to ask for that, even! For 
the intensely dry winter climate of Cibiria (like the dry- 
ing-up winter weather of Manhattan) sometimes gives 
one an acute thirst. 
Of course a letter of introduction gives you no right 
to expect it means table hospitality. It would be pre- 
posterous to put such a construction on it. But, as a 
matter of usage in isolated country regions, it is generally 
supposed to mean a little "wanner" reception than can be 
got out of a glass of cold water on a 20-below-zero win- 
try morning. However, as a philosopher, I have no fault 
to find with the Kniaz. All these actions are interesting 
traits of human character. 
So I hied me back to the hotel, had the steaming samo- 
var brought in, and put in the rest of the day going 
