The Arizona champion., 1891-01-10
IN THE NORTH WOODS.
Cutting the Timber of the
 AdirondaekS.
INVOCATION THAT IS DANGEROUS AT TIMES
Work of the LOggers on Little Black
 Oreek.-Wages.

hfteen inches over the THUS. The mill
 men and log drivers, to the number of
 forty, reached the ground early. While
 the greater part of the drivers were dis
 tributed along the stream to break the old
 jams left when the water fell a year ago,
 one gang went to the dumps near the res
 ervoir, and began to snake, as they said,
 the logs into the running water. These
 logs foated along, lively spectacle, till
 they reached the first rifts. Here they
 bumped and rolled over the rocks till one
 long spruce, driven by the weight of
 water and logs behind, and directed by a
 glancing blow on big boulder that reared
 its black head few inches above the water,
 was hurled end on between two big trees
 that stood close together on the bank.
 It shot ahead till half its length was
 ashore and then the end caught among the roots of big birch. It could neither go further nor swing around with the
 current, and in less time than it takes to
 write it the logs behind were piled over and around it and jam was formed. In few minutes 800 logs were lodged there. A big, humpbacked man, dressed in an old slouch hat that was on the back of his head, red shirt open over his chest, brown trousers tucked into tho tops of long legged, red woolen socks, and pair of shoes with spikes half an inch long, came alongl He gave one glance at the jam, and then, dropping the cant hook he had carried over his shoulder, went up the stream and came back with an ax. Then he gave nine blows on the up stream side of the long spruce log just where it rested against the tree on the bank. The log broke, and the jam of logs continued rolling and pumping along over the rift.
 The logs that lodged along the edges of the stream were allowed to remain These usually lay with the down stream end further out in the water than the up stream end. By Sunday night there was scarce a rod of bank for twenty miles where there was no log. Where jams had been broken as many as a hundred logs were piled along each bank of the rift within space of thirty feet. Sometimes the logs would form piles of thirty or forty on each bank, where they would lie almost as if designedly dumped there by the men one on top of tho other, the pile not being over two logs long. These piles narrowed the stream until an active man could easily jump over it, and the water would rise up between the piles, crowning in tho middle, and of double the depth of what it was above or below this partial dam. Thus what might be called a natural sluiceway, since it was not built by man, was formed, and the logs, guided by the opening sides of the sluiceway, would go shooting through like arrows.
 The weather gradually grew colder, and on the fourth day the reservoir was opened. The water came down in flood. It had got down to jam of perhaps 500 logs below what is known as the old Bax- ter mill, an abandoned structure and had lifted up the mass, but had not cleared the one key log which in this case held the jam. The key log was lodged end on against rock square in the middle of the and the other end was somewhere under the logs, above and against the bank. One of the Wall boys ran out on the jam when he saw that it would not move, and, finding the key log, put his cant hook on it and gave it a twist. It failed to move. Then he threw his whole weight on it, and the log rolled over so easily that he tumbled into the water, right under the logs as they came rolling and plunging down. Two companions had started out to help him, but as the logs moved they started back to the shore When they looked around again Wall was nowhere in sight. He had disappeared under the logs, and they thought he was being ground to pieces upon the stones of the rift. Blu he was not. He had clung to the forward end of the first log that he could get his hand on, and in a second more he bobbed up between two hemlocks, and little latter he was standing on the bank and saying: ''The old man will give me thunder for losing that cant hook, won't he3"
 The resources of civilization, as O'Dono- van Rossa would say, are lessening the dangers of log driving. Dynamite is used not only to blast the rocks from the beds of the creeks, as it will be used this year in Little Black creek but when 0 jam is formed in a large stream, and it is plainly seen that one log holds the jam, Q charge of dynamite blows the smithereens out of that log, while the loggers look on from safe distance, instead of going down into 3 gorge by a rope and taking the chances of getting ground up after the jam starts.
 The log drivers get from $2 to $4 day and board. They work from daylight to dark. To feed and lodge them so as to get the greatest amount of work from them requires foresight and care. Six comfortable shanties were built along Little Black creek, before the drive began, from three to five miles apart. The shan ties were manned with cook and two to three assistants each, and stocked with stacks of corned beef, pork, ham, four, potatoes, tea and coffee. The cook and his men got $2 day each. Breakfast was served by lantern light to the men who lodged in hemlock hunks in the shanties. Then the men were off, and the cook and his help turned to and cooked the first luncheon. It consisted of bread and but ter, meat, and tea and coffee. Each as- sistant strapped a pack basket filled with bread and meat to his back, and took a huge can of coffee in one hand and an other of tea in the other. Tin cups dan gled in a bright profusion all over him. One assistant went up the creek with his load and the other down. As the snow averaged two feet deep in the swampy bottoms along the creek, the task of the was not enviable.
 Wherever he found driver he served to him all the food he wanted. This first luncheon was served at about 10 o'clock. Another like it was served to the men along the banks and on the jams between ? and 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Supper was served at dark. It was really din her, for the men in addition to the bread, meat and potatoes got some sort of sauce and pudding. A look at the quantity of food that an old driver will eat in day would make dyspeptic groan, but if the ordinary dyspeptic could merely fol low drive, let alone lending a hand with a cant hook, he would, under the invigor- ating influence of breezes laden with the perfume of spruce and balsam boughs, and of the influence of sunshine and spring water, get like appetite himself.
 A Serious Difficulty.