The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-12-28

poles. peaveys. axes. rope and dyna-
mite, for use in various emergencies.
Intense rivalry existed as to which
crew Sacked" the farthest down
stream in the course of the day. There
was no need to urge the men. Some
stood upon logs. pushing nightly with
the long pikepoles. Others, waist deep
in the water, clamped the jaws Of
their peaVeys into the stubborn tim
bers. and. shoulder bent, slid them
slowly but surely into the swifter wa
terS. Still others, lining up on either
side of one of the great brown tree
trunks. carried it bodily to it's ap-
pointed place. From one end of the
rear to the other. shouts. calls. wErn-
ings and Jokes few back and forth.
Once or twice vast roar of Homeric
laughter went up as some unfortunate
slipped and soused into the water
When the current Stacked and the logs
hesitated in their run, the entire crew
fastened, bobbing from log to log,
down river to see about it. Then they
broke the jam; standing surely on the
edge of the great darkness, while the
ice water sucked in and out of their
Shoes
Behind the rear Big Junko poled his
bateau backwards and forwards ex-
ploding dynamite. Many of the bot
tom tiers of logs in the rollways had
been frozen down, and Big Junko
had to loosen them from the bed of
the stream. He was a big man, this,
as his nickname indicated, built of
many awkwardnesses. His cheekbones
were high. his nose fat, his lips thick
and slobbery. He sported a wide, fero-
cious, struggling mustache, and long
eyebrows, under which cleaned little
fierce eyes. His forehead sloped back
like beasts, but was always hidden
by a disreputable felt hat. Big Junko
did not know much. and had the pas
sions of a wild animal, but he was a
reckless riverman and devoted TO
Thorpe. Just now he exploded dyna-
mite.
The sticks of powder were piled
amidships. Big Junko crouched over
them, inserting the fuses and caps,
closing the openings with soap, fin
ally lighting them, and dropping them
into the water alongside, where they
Immediately sank. Then. a few strokes
OF a short paddle took him barely out
of danger. He huddled down in his
craft. waiting. One, two. three sec
onds passed. Then a hollow boom
shook the stream. cloud of water
sprang up, strangely beautiful. After
moment the great brown logs rose
suddenly to the surface from below,
one after the other like leviathans Of
the deep. And Junko watched, dim
~ fascinated, in his rudimentary ami
mails brain, by the sight of the power
he had evoked to his aid
When night came the men rode down
stream to where the wanigan had made
camp. There they slept, often in blank
cts wetted by the wanigan's eccen-
tricitieS, to leap to their feet at the
first cry in early morning. Some days
it rained. in which case they were wet
all the time. Almost invariably there
was jam to break, through strangely
enough almost every one of the old
timers believed implicitly that lin the
full of the moon logs will run free
at night"
Thorpe and Tim Shearer nearly al
ways slept in a dog tent at the rear;
though occasionally they passed the
night at Dam Two, where Bryan Mo-
loney and his crew were already en-
gagged in sluicing the logs through the
chute.
The affair was simple enough Long
booms arranged in the form of an open
V guided the drive to the suice gate,
through which a smooth apron of wa
ter rushed to turmoil in an eddying
pool below. Two men tramped stead
lily backwards and forwards on the
boOms, urging the logs forward by
means or long PIKE poles TO. where the
suction could seize them. Below the
dam, the push of the sluice water
forced them several miles down stream,
where the rest of Bryan Moloney's
crew took them in charge
Thus through the wide gate nearly
three quarters of a million feet an
hour could be run-a quantity more
than sufficient to keep pace with the
exertiOns of the rear. The matter was,
of course, more or less delayed by the
necessity of breaking out such roll
ways as they encountered from time
to time on the banks. At length, how
ever, the last of the logs drifted into
the wide dam pool. The rear had ar
rived at Dam Two, and Thorpe con-
graduated himself that one stage of
his journey had been completed. Billy
Camp began to worry about shooting
the wanigan through the sluice-way.