The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-08-17


weighted strap is nothing uncommon,
and serious injuries are occasionally
inflicted. But there is just where the
fun comes in-at least in the eyes of the
lumberman. His whole fife Is made mp
of peril and hardship; no sport is live
ly enough to tickle his tough palate un-
less hotly spiced with pain and haz-
nrd. So slack, where be you?" Is IA
sorite amusement.
II WAS near Arctic Falls, in the In
termipable wilderness of northern
Maine, that the tragedy occurred. |
was very familiar with the region as
boy. and many times heard the story
repeated with all the vivid detail nat
ural to those for whom memory serves
Is substitute for Imagination.
The place is rugged and picturesque
beyond compare. The savage little
hamlet lies in the valley of the Anti
segunticook, where the plunging
stream has cut through the solid gran
ite a deep gorge, in hich the drives
OF logs clog and gather in bristling
Jams, while the dammed-up waters rise
behind in tumult, and surge with new
fury through the tangled obstruction.
] imagine the peril of those who go
down into the roaring chasm TO tug
and pry at the foot of this gigantic
dead-fall, until, rs some trigger-lilSe
coordination is loosened, the whole
mass shudders and gives way, and
thunderous avalanche of foam aud logs
plunges down the steep sluiceway.
Many are the victims that this merci-
less wooden juggernaut has claimed.
Each year, on the white beach at the
foot or the rapids. are fount red-shirted
forms, mangled and distorted, cast up
there by swirling eddy. They are
pulled out from among the murderous
logs that are driven up on the same
sands. and are carted away 10 the near
est graveyard, ten miles distant For
there are no graves at Arctic Falls
there is not soil enough; the hard
granite floor is uncarpeted with sod
Neither are there any wells-what use
TO drive shafts down in the fiinty rock?
And the rivulets that race down from
the overhanging hills have oil cut
through the thin film OF mold. and
speed over beds OF smooth black stone.
On the main street of the village the
heavy wagons jar along a naked ledge
OF rock; in the forest the great roots
OF the trees stand ont like talons, grip
ping for a foothold; and the mountains
that wall in the barren scene show
seamy slopes so bare and PERCEPTIONS
that a loosened bowldcr will fly down
Ike a cannon ball until II crashes i'm
the thicket below. Arctic Falls fills
many graves. bus provides none; saw.
agc and pitiless. IL casts out it's dead
unburied.
And the mills, they are as merciless
es the torrent that drives them. The
fierce shrek of the fanged saw ever
mingles with the believing OF the wa
tiers. Night and day they run at race
horse speed in serried gangs that rip
through -half-a-dozen logs -ai-oneo.
Great dripping tree-trunks rush in a
ccaseless stream up the steep incline,
are tossed about Ike straws by the
massive machinery. and fall i'm heap OF
elsb and plank before you could walk
their length. The throbbing air Is
heavy with the odor Of spray and the
aromatic fragrance Of fresh rcnded
pine. Jagged edgings, like giant tooth
Pichs, ncap up Ia mountainous sterks,
which are burned each night; and The
fed fomts light scene worthy Of the
1ntsrno. Woe 20 the-foot that slips or