The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-11
A TERRIBLE RIDE.
Plunging Down a Mountain Side on a
 Log.

Log.
 In these days of modern appliances and perfected means of travel by steam and electricity, mutilating distance at the rate of mile minute, or even more is considered nothing so startling, but the rapid transit and the modus op- erandi thereof participated in by John Sweetwood, lumoerman in the wilds of the Alleghany Mountains one day recently, corners the market on fast travelling.
 Sweetwood Is young man of about twenty-two years of age. He is the son of farmer from one of the most ! rural districts of this county, big, raw boned and fearless of anything on top of the earth. As with all farmers, so with this one; work during the winter l season is slack and John, thinking to earn an extra penny for himself deter mined late in the fall of 1896, and with | the opening of the numbering season, to go into the woods and spend the winter | logging" In numbering, as in every other kind of employment, experience counts for great deal and the inexpe- rienced, or "greenies," as they are termed in the lumbermens camp, are not deemed capable of performing the work of an old hand at the business, and so are generally put at work on something more simple.
 Fifteen or twenty years ago lumber ing was vastly different in the Allegha- nies from what it is to-day. Then vir- gin forests covered the entire range of mountains and the lumbermen had only to select the timber nearest to some stream, and the work of getting the logs to water to float down to market was question of minor importance Now, owing to the fact that all the tim Der along the large streams has been cut, the getting of the logs to water is one of the gravest questions confront ing the lumberman. Where practica- ble, what are termed log drives are erected for this purpose. A log drive" Is simply constructed by laying two hewed logs alongside each other, in @ trail out from the camp to the nearest stream, sometimes five, eight or ten miles away. These drives are usually prepared early In the fall, and when the first fall of snow comes they are put in condition for use by hauling a drag along between them, which packs down the snow. On this water Is poured and allowed to freeze, the result being a rude trough of ice, over which the logs glide down grade Perhaps half the distance will be up grade, and to get the logs up the mountain teams of l horses are used. After the logs are rolled into the drive team is hitched 1 to a log with perhaps one hundred ahead of 1t, according to the steepness of the incline, and in this way the whole string Is pushed to the top. It was while working on one of these drives that Sweetwood met with the following thrilling experience:
 With a canthook he was to follow the first log as sort of steerer, whose duty 1t was to see that ali was well. If the log caught fast on any protruding ice, snow or wood, with his hook he would loosen 1t so that the trail would come on. When the drive is In bad condition. the steerer always finds plenty to do to keep him busy, but if there Is lots of snow and cold weather the slide is usu- ally all that can be desired, and the steerer invariably has only the monoto- ny of tramping alongside and watching the logs glide along. This was the case during the late cold weather, and | Sweetwood evidently tired with so much tramping, determined to use the logs as a means of more easily getting up the mountain. With the driver of the team away back out of sight, Sweetwood climbed on the foremost log and congratulated himself how much nicer it was than trudging along in the snow.
 In this pleasant mood he either for got that when the logs reached the top of the incline and began to descend the grade their transit suddenly increased, or else he was so absorbed in the pleas ures of his ride that he forgot where he was. Be that as it may, however, when
 the first log went over the incline and began going down Sweetwood was still on it, and before he could dismount the log was going at such speed that to even try to get off meant death.
 In this dilemma all that could be done was to hold on like grim death and await the worst, which to all intents seemed death in some form or other, and most likely a most horrible death.
 Talk of express trains, electricity or rapid transit in any of Its various forms, they are not in 1t with the way
 that log trail went down the mountain
 side. From the summit to the west
 branch of the Susquehanna, where the drive ended, was at least six miles, and
 in most places the drive was quite steep. Gathering momentum with eve ry foot of its descent, the log with
 Sweetwood on it sped on as if shot from
 some great gun. Trees and rocks were
 passed with such startling rapidity that
 they seemed as one solid blurred wall;
 the snow was only a glare of white, the
 log drive itself seemed only diminu-
 tive line, only faintly discernable, wind
 ing in and out like a huge snake.
 Sweetwood early in the ride lost his
 hat, and his hair streamed out behind
 like the tail of bob-tail horse; the lwind sang deafening tunes in his ears