The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-02-27
A LOGGING-CAMP BOSS.
4 Thrilling Incident I'm the Pineries
Northern Michigan.

|
"For a young man 1 have done some
pretty tough scrapping in the Rockies
and mining,regions of New Mexico and
Arizona, but few days ago had the
worst scare of my life in the lumber
districts of Northern NJ chigan." The
speaker was young man of S ,me
twenty-seven years, dressed in ro.igh-
and-ready style and wearing frizzy
tow beard. He shifted the position OF
his broad shoulders as he loUnged back
in an easy chair in the Sherman House
office, pulled his cigar vigorously, and
| then continued: ut was one of those
bitter cold days we've just been having,
and | had got up at three O'Clock to
rouse the men and get their sprinkler
out. The air seemed full of blue steel
and cut to my marrow like razor.
One of the Transfers got scared
out and played off sick. So l
had to take his place. When we
had got a good, big load 1 took the
logs, leaving the two loggers on be-
| hind. Of course about twenty feet of
! the load hung off the last bob. The
road was sheet If ice, for the spri.ik-
| Ter ran over it every morning, and the
horses were sharp-shod, so we sid
along smoothly until we got to the
slide-a pretty steep incline ending in
a turn VIII ch was .ghty sharp for a
road sixty feet wide. As soon as We
started down my hair began to stand
on end, for tie horses galloped like
fury to keep ahead of the hobs which
were Slowing all over the road. l got 50
paralyzed and nervous that when we
approached the turn l refined in too
suddenly. l felt the front hobs jump
one way and the back hobs the other.
The hind ends of the logs whistled
through the air like willow switches
and heard the loggers yell: For Gods
sake, - The next thing was
loud snap. snap! snap!-like
three tremendous paper-crackers-as
the big log-chainS broke like SO many
cotton threads. Did you ever use a
switch sling? Whirl it round and
round your head, you know, till sud-
den twist sends the apple off the end
and spinning into the air? Well. that
is the way | felt and that is Just
what | thought of as | was shot off in
TO the air, over and over and over, till
| struck in snow drift some hundred
or more feet from the road. When |
had struggled back through the snow
found the horses trying to kick loose
from the few bits of harness that dan
gled about them, the hobs tangled
around the trunk of Il small pine tree,
and the logs scattered to the four
winds. One logger crawled back to
the road with fractured leg. and the
other soon followed with dislocated
shoulder. One had struck tree and
the second had landed against stump.
They afterward told me in camp that
those things were not at all unusual,
and, as had some pretty heavy bruises
myself, | concluded that | was not
made to boss a lumber camp. So | was
driven to town next day to telegraph
the management that the head team
ster was filling my place, and that |
was on my way to Chicago: and you
bet your Life l am glad did it. If you
have never passed a winter in the Mich
igan lumber districts you don't know
s.
man has to work from three in the
morning till eight and sometimes
eleven at night. My daily life,
while | was fool enough to stay there,
was something like this: l kept store
for twenty teamsterS and bossed teen
at their work. l slept and ate in the
only approximately clean place in she
whole ranch-a little box built out INTO
the big room and all lined with strong
tobacco, curry-combs, socks, pins, bait
tons, buckwheat, kerosene and bad
molaSseS. The box had no cover, so as
lay on the only quilt between me and
the floor could see the stars through
the frosty cracks in the roof. The
onions, beans, cabbages and a small
key Of sauerkraut We're stored just out
side my door in the big room, which
was heated red-hot by an immense
open fireplace. At night the men
would take off their soaking-wet ruiz
Der boots and stand them up by tie
fire.
Those were awful old days for me-
/ had almost sleepless nights, and then
had to get up before daybreak, with
the thermometer twenty or thirty de-
grees below zero, and go about my
work with splitting headache, cor
tracted in the foul air in which had to
pass the night am glad am out If
it. 1t is an unhealthy, dirty. danger
Gus business. and unless man is III
with the management there is no mop
ey in it. Chicago Tribune.