The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1903-09-24


rel returned with significance magni-
fed thousandfold by her fears.
81 called him worthless and drunken"
she said, with dry eyes and pale. tremb-
ling lips, "and he is neither. Poor Tom!
Though he does drink sometimes, II Is
through discouragementa and disappoint-
ment at his hard lot, and he is always
kind to me. Oh, God, II could recall
my words! But is It too late? | may
save him YETI"
The Curtis Lumber companys mills
stood on the level bottom adjacent to the
river and about 100 yards from it. Half
a mile above the mills the railroad
| crossed the river over a long iron bridge,
and from point just below the southern
end of the bridge an artificial ditch had
been cut to float the logs into the mill
at high water. 1t was this bridge and
the ditch that were responsible for the
trouble which now prevailed.
Au Sable river was roaring, booming,
yellow food. All day the great sawlogs,
broken from their moorings above, had
been rushing by in thousands. But now
immense pine trees, torn up by their
roots, were borne upon the bosom of the
raging torrent. One of these monarchs
of the forest had caught between the two
middle piers Of the bridge, and formed
! the nucleus of rapidly growing mass OF
| timber and debris. the long stems of the
| great pines writhirg and rolling together
like the hideous forms of gigantic SER
| pents. Not only was the bridge threat
ened with momentary destruction. but
the dam thus formed caught the waters
up and hurled them and their ponderous
armature down the ditch and against the
mills below, with a violence that must
soon accomplish their destruction.
To get at the pine trunk and cut IL
would release the straining, tumbling
mass, restore the raging waters to their
natural channel, and save the bridge and
the mills. But woe to him who cut It!
When Tom Harding, ak in hand.
stepped upon the bridge and started on
| his mission, not one of the group who
stood looking on in breathless silence
but felt that he was witnessing a tra-
gedy.
''The man is committing sheer, down
right suicide" said an old lumberman
who had spent his life In the forest and
on the river. 1T oughtnt to be allowed" I"
But Tom had already reached the mid
| die Of the long structure, and was feeling
his way down over the tumbling, grind
ing pile as only lumberman can. Now
he stood with careful footing upon the
huge pine stem, bending under the awful
strain, and now he piled his ak with tell
ing vigor, making the chips fly at each
| powerful stroke. To an eye not cogni-
/ zant of his terrible danger the sturdy
| lumberman might have been following
his daily vocation for anything in his
| look or manner that denoted the con-
! trary.
But the woman, wild-eyed and pant
| ing, with hair disheveled and hanging in
rain-soaked tresses down her back, who
! just now Joined the group on the bank,
realized his danger, and a piercing shrek
mingled with the roar Of the waters.
"Oh, Tom, dear Tom, come back to me!
Forgive my cruel words, and come back
| for baby's sake and mine!" and she
held the little, wet, shivering thing up
in full view of it's parent out on the river.
He heard not her words, but he saw
his child, and every feeling vanished be-
fore the paternal. Returned and looked
at the towering mass above him, and for
a moment those on shore hoped he might
escape. But the next! A terrible grind
! ing crash, as the great tree parted, an
awful, muffied roar, and for a single in
stant the lumberman's form stood poised
on the broken tree. He kissed his hand
once. and above the din came the words,
at was for you Maggie; you and the
baby" and then he went down. and was
borne away by the rushing swirl of wa
ters.
Half an hour later searchers found a
limp, unconscious body suspended to the
branches Of tree where It had been left
by the now receding waters. II was at
first thought that the man was dead, but
closer examination revealed the fact that
he breathed, and liberal draught from a
lumberman's flask forced down his
throat partly restored him to conscious
ness. That night Tom Harding was car
ried home to his wife, terribly manned
and bruised. 1t Is true, but still alive
Under her tender and happy ministra.
tions he finally recovered, and from his
terrible experience he cleaned lesson
that will last him all his life To-day no,
happier trio lives than Tom and Mar
garet and their baby.-Farm and Fire.
side.
CAUSE OF KENTUCKY FEuDS.