The Savannah morning news., 1902-11-23

| Grafton in speed checked, then COM
menced perceptibly to slacken. At once
the rest of the crew began to ride
| downstream. Each struck the caulks
| of his river boots strongly into a log,
| and on such unstable vehicles fioated
miles with the current. From time to
| time, as Bryan Moloney indicat ted, one
of them went ashore. There, usually
| at a bend of the stream where the
| likelihood of tanning was great, they
| took their stands. When necessary,
! they ran out over the face Of the river
to separate a congestion likely to cause
| trouble. The rest of the time thy smok-
| ed their pipes.
All night long the logs slipped down
| the mOonli. current, silently, swiftly,
| yet without haste. From the whole
length of the river rang the hollow
| boom, boom, boom, of timbers striking
| one against the other.
The drive was on.
CHAPTER XVII.
In the meantime the main body OF
| the crew under Thorpe and his fore
men were briskly tumbling the logs
| into the current. The men had con-
/ tinually to keep alert, for at any mo-
ment they were called upon to exercise
| their best Judgment and quickness TO
keep from being carried downward
with the rush of the logs. Not infre-
quentIy a frowning sheer wall of forty
| feet would hesitate on the brink of
plunge. Then Shearer himself proved
his right to the title of riverman.
Shearer wore caulks nearly an inch
| in length. He had been known to ride
| ten miles, without shifting his feet, on
a log so small that he could carry it
without difficulty. For cool nerve he
was uneXcelled.
Il don't need you boys here any
longer" he said quietly.
When the men had all withdrawn, he
walked confidently under the front of
the rollway, glancing with practiced
eye at the perpendicular wall of logs
over him. Then. as a man prizes jack
straws, he clamped his peavey and
tugged sharply. At once the rollway
hattened and toppled. A mighty splash,
a fluff of flying foam and crushing
timber, and the spot on which the riv-
erman had stood was buried beneath
20 feet of solid green wood. To Thorpe
ii seemed that Shearer must have been
overwhelmed, but the river man al
ways mysterieusly appeared at one
side or the other, nonchalant, urging
the men to work before the logs should
have ceased to move. History stated
that Shearer had never lost a man on
the river, simply and solely because ne
invariably took the dangerous tasks
upon himself.
broken. Now it became necessary to
start the rear.
For this purpose Billy Camp, the
cook, had loaded his cook-stove,
quantity of provisions, and a supply
of bedding. aboard a scow. At either
end were long sweeps to direct its
course. The craft was perhaps forty
feet long, but rather narrow, in order
that IL might pass easily through the
n Il ha
"wanigan."
The huge, unwieldy craft from that
moment was to become possessed of
the devil. Down the white water of
rapids it would bump, smashing OBJ
stinately against boulders; against the
branches of the stream side it would
scrape; in the broad reaches it would
sull<, refusing to proceed: and when
expediency demanded. it's pause. it
would drag Billy Camp and his entire
crew at the ropes end, while they tried
vainly to snub it against successfully
uprooted trees and stuInps. When at
last the wanigan was moored fast for
the night-usually mile or so below
the spot planned-Billy Camp pushed
back his battered old brown derby hat,
the badge of his office, with a sigh of
relief. To be sure he and his men had
still to cut wood, construct cooking and
camp fires, pitch tents, snip browse
and prepare supper for seventy men:
but the hard work of the day was
over
Along either bank, among the bushes,
on sandbars and in trees. hundreds
and hundreds of logs had been strand
ed when the main drive passed. These
logs the rear crew were engaged in
restoring to the current.
And as a man had to be able to ride
any kind of log in any water; to pro-
pei that log by jumping on it, by roll
ing it squirrel fashion with the feet,
by punting it as one would a canoe; to
be skillful in pushing, prying and poll
ing other logs from the quarter deck
of the same cranky craft; as he must
be prepared at any and all times to
jump waist deep into the river, to work
in ice water hours at a stretch; as he
was called upon to break the most
dangerous jams on the river repre-
senting, as they did, the accumulat ton
which the jam crew had left behind
them, it was naturally considered the
| hight of glory to belong to the rear
crew. Here were the best of the Fight
ing Forty-men with reputation as
| whitewater birlers"-men afraid of
nothing.
Every morning the crews were d.
vided into two sections under Kerie
| and Jack Hyland. Each crew had
| charge of one side of the river. Scotty
Parsons exercised a general supervis-
DRY eye over both crews. Shearer and
Thorpe travelled back and forth the
| length of the drive, riding the logs
/ down stream. but taking to a partly
| submerged pole trail when ascending
| the current. On the surface of the
| river in the clear water fioated two
| long graceful boats called bateaux
| These We're in charge of expert boat
men. They carried in racks a great
supply of pike-poles, peaveys, axes,
/ rope and dynamite, for use in various
| emergencies. Intense rivalry existed
as to which crew Sacked" the far
thest down the stream in the course of
the day. There was no need to urge
the men. Some stood upon the logs,
pushing nightly with the long pike
poles. From one end of the rear to
the other, shouts, calls, warnings and
jokes flew 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 hes
itated 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 dark
rests, 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 bottom
tiers of logs in the rollways had been