The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1892-11-18
DARING DEEDS.
PERILS OF PENNSYLVANIA LUMBER.
MEN ON THE SUSoUEHANNA.

Exciting scenes-Work Which Requires
Great Courage-A Miraculous Escape
From Instant Death.
An exciting and always dreaded pe-
riod in the lumberman's life in the
woods is the breaking down" of log
piles heaped or banked at the sum
mits of the long rollwsys that border
the streams. These rollways extend
from the tops of high hills and abrupt
banks to the waters edge. There are
two ways of piling the logs-one by
placing them in regular ranks or tiers,
and the other by throwing or dropping
them in iumbled heaps on the ground.
In the latter method, the logs lock,
cross, and key one another, and so it
! frequently occurs that some log in a
dangerous position must be loosened at
the risk of life and limb before the logs
have gone down the steep hillsides to
their places in the water.
The woodsman makes his wav nimbly
out with caution over the protruding
logs and across treacherous pitfalls,
frequently disappearing entirely beneath
some upheaved group of immense tim
5ers as he tries to locate the log or logs
that prevent the great pile from break
ing and completing its lightning like
plunge into the stream below. One or
two blows with his axe may be suff-
cient to remove an obstruction that has
persistently detied the many tons of
pressure from above. Then, again, it
may require an hours chopping and
prying, or perhaps days hard work
even, to break the jam. When the key
is broken, however, is the time that re-
quires the driver to exercise all his
nimbleness, nerve and skill to escape
from the rush of pitching, tossing,
laundering logs that he has started.
He leaps here and there and jumps
from log to log in his flight, with the
avalanche of timber pressing close be-
hind him, or perhaps moving in under
his feet.
Such rush of a pile of logs down a
steep rollway is in itself an exciting
scene, but with it chasing daring lum-
herman before it, whom the slightest
misstep would place at the mercy of the
flying timber, it is spectacle that only
the boldest can gaze upon. A rush of
logs, rolling, tumbling, and roaring
into stream, will dash the water fifty
feet into the air and leave the bottom
of the stream as bare as the shore until
the water falls back again in foam and
spray to its place.
One incident on one of these rollways
may be cited as the daily story almost
of them all, although in this case the
result was a most miraculous and un-
heard-of escape from rush of logs, in
stead of the usual sickening loss of life.
The logs were in such situation that
to find and start the log that was the
key to the jam was task of more than
usual risk. The men had worked at
the jam from the outer edges nearly all
day, but in vain. At last three men
volunteered to go out ON the logs, find
the keg log, and remove it. AS they
neared the center of the great pile, the
man who took the lead shouted to his
brothers to go back, as he had found
the log that held the jam, and it could
be removed without aid from them, so
that it was an unnecessary risk of life
for them to go on. His two comrades
refused to leave, and he sent them above
the log on which he stood, saying that
they could aid him better there.
1t was plain afterward that he put
them at that point only to save them
from the fate that seemed almost ce!
tain to follow the starting of the one log
that held the hundreds of others in
check. He pried one log up few
inches and shifted another to one side,
and the trap was sprung, The slippery
peeled logs rushed away under the feet
of the three men. The two younger
men, who were out of the real danger
line, managed to reach place of safety
by their agility in leaping from log to
log. The other kept his feet, and with
wonderful dexterity made his way along
with the moving, crashing, laundering
mass of logs down toward the creek,
working his way to one side of the roll
way, to reach which meant safety for
him. The men who were watching him
in his desperate leaps for life saw him
reach the edge, almost beyond danger,
and gave a shout. At that moment a
log was hurled upward from the crowd
ing mass, and it came down imme-
diately in the rear of the lumberman.
One end swung around and struck him
on the leg. He fell, and, in second,
log after log piled up on the spot,
and a score or more shot and rolled and
tumbled on over them to the creek.
The instant the rush of logs was over
the mans fellow-workmen hastened to
remove the pile beneath which they ex-
pected to find their companion crushed
out of all human form. For two hours
they worked, and as they neared the
bottom of the pile they were amazed to
hear groan. At last they came to him
on the ground with log across his legs.
A big log that lay end down in the
water, firmly fixed in its position
against the solid jam already in the
creek, had caught the ends of two 9TH
ers as they came down in the rush, aid
held them clear of the ground, space
of two feet being left between them and
the ground.
With these two logs he had evidently
gone down and had fallen between
them, the end of one of them falling
across his legs. The two logs had
served to keep the great pile clear of
his body, and saved him from being
crushed. One of his legs and several
of his ribs were broken. He was taken
out unconscious, but he recovered from