Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1903-06-26
THE RIVER B0SS.

"Get the logs oIt Get them out peace .
ably if you can, but get them out He
needs no instructions from headquarters
to tell him how to live up to this rule.
That might involve headquarters.
Jimmy was such a river boss. There
fore when Mr. DAILY, Of the firm of Nor
risou Il DAILY, unexpectedly found him
self contracted to deliver 5.000000 feet
Of logs at a certain date, and the logs
an impossible number of miles upstream,
he called in Jimmy
Jimmy was a small man, changeess
as the Egyptian Sphinx. a number of
years ago a French comic journal pub
lished series of sketches supposed to
represent the Shah of Persia Influenced
by various emotions. Under each was
an appropriate label, as Surprise Grief.
Anger or Astonishment. The portraits
were identically alike, and uniformly
impressive.
Wen. that was Jimmy. He looked
always the same. His hair. thick and
black. grew low on his forehead; his
beard thick and black. mounted over
the ridge of his cheek bones; and his
eyebrows. thick and black. extended in
an uninterrupted straight line from one
temple to the other. Whatever his
small compact. muscular body might be
doing. the mask of his black and white
imperturbability remained always un-
changed. Generally he sat clasping one
knee, staring directly In front of him,
and putting regularly on a ''meerschaum"
pipe he had earned by saving the tags
of Spearhead tobacco. Whatever you
said to him sank without splash into this
almost primal calm, and was lost to view
! forever Perhaps after n time he might
do something about it, but always with
/ out explanation. calmly. with the lofty
/ inevitabilty Of fate. In fact he never
/ explained himself. even to his employers.
! DAILY swung his bulk back and forth
in the office chair Jimmy sat bolt up
right. his black hat pendent between
| his knees.
! Il want you to take charge of the driv-
| ing crew, Jimmy" said the big man.
| II want you to drive those logs down
! to our boom as fast as you can. I give
you about twenty days. 1t ought to
be done in that Sanders will keep
time for you, and Merrill will cook You
can get a crew from the East Branch
where the drive is just over"
When DAILY had quite finished his re-
marks. Jimmy got up and went out with
out n word. Two days later he and
sixty men were breaking rollways forty
five miles upstream
Jimmy knew as well as DAILY that the
latter had given him a hard task Tween
" days was too brief a time. However.
that was none of his business.
The logs during the winter had been
piled in the bed of the stream. They
extended over three miles Of rolways.
Jimmy and his crew began at the DOWN
stream end to tumble the big piles into
the current. Sometimes only two or
three of the logs would rattle down
at others the whole deck would bulge
outwards. hover for moment and
roar into the stream like grain from an
elevator. Shortly the narrows below the
rollways damned. Twelve men were
detailed the Jam crew" Their bust
ness was to keep the stream free in
order that the constantly increasing sup
ply from the rolways might not nm up
the river. It was not an easy business.
nor very safe. As the lam" strung
out over more and more of the river.
the jam crew was constantly recruited
from the men on the rollways Thus
some Of the logs. very few. the luck
lest. drifted into the dam pond at Grand
Rapids within few days: the bulk Jam
med and broke. and damned again al
a point few miles below the rollwavs
while large proportion stranded
plugged. caught. and tangled at the very
rollways themselves
Jimmy had permitted himself two DAYS
in which to break out the rollways II
was done in two. Then the rear" was
started. Men in the rear crew had &c
see that every last log got into the cur
rent. and stayed there When a ian
broke. the middle Of it shot down stream
in most spectacular fashion. but along
the banks winged out" distressingly
Sometimes the heavy sticks of timber
had been forced right out on the dry
land. The rear crew lifted them back
When an obstinate log grounded they
jumped cheerfully into the water-witt
the rotten ice swrlng around thcm-ant
pried the thing off bottom. Between
times they stood upright on single IN.
G. nh ,F.vl,.s ~
poles while the ice water sucked in anJ
out Of their spiked river shoes
As for the concentrations. Naturally
there was a good deal Of rivalry as tt
which wing should advance fastest: anC
one experiences a certain physical thrill
in Venturing under thirty feet OF Jam
med logs for the sole purpose of teasins
the whole mass to cascade down on one
, or of shooting a rapid while standins
upright on a single timber. I believe
too. ii Is considered mighty honor t,
belong to the rear crew. Still. the waite
Is cold. and the hours long, and yo,
have to sleep in tents.
1t can readily be seen that the pro
! gress of the rear measures the progress
of the drive Some few logs in tn
Jam may run fifty miles a day-an,
often debut If the sackng has gon
slowly at the rear. the drive may no
have gained more than a thousand yards
! Therefore Jimmy stayed at the rear.
Jimmy was a mighty good riverman
OF course he had nerve, and could d.
anything with a log and a peeve ant
would fight at the drop of a hat-an!
To- "hullY boy" would qualify there ;-bu
he also had judgment. He knew HOY
= To use the water how to recognize tn
key log of jams. where to place his men
in short he could get out the logs. Nov
Jimmy also knew the river from one en-,
to the other, so he had arranged i'm hi
| mind sort of schedule for the twent,
, | days Forty-eiGht hours for the roll
ways; a day and a half for the uppe
rapid: three days into the dam pond
| one dav to sluice the drive through tn
dam; three days To the crossing. an
SO on. If everything went well. he coul
C do it, but there could be no bitches II
the program.
Even from this imperfect fragment O
the schedule the inexperienced Nigh
ina CINE that Jimmy had allowed an al
e together disproportonate time to cove
the mile or so from the upper rapid T.
the dam pond. As II turned out how
1 ever he found he had not aNloweC
enough, for a this point the river wa
e peculiar and very trying.
e The backwater Of the dam extended up
stream half a mile; then occurred a ris
! of five feet to the mile. down the sion
= Of which the water whirled and tumble6
, | only to spread out over a broad fan q
gravel shadows. These shadows did tn
$ business. When the logs had bumpe
T through the trihulations of the rapiC
they seemed to insist obstinately Of