The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-09-11

really efficient river boss
~ knows a better. 1t runs. Get
them out peaceably, if you
can. but get them out" He needs no in
structions from headquarters to tell him
how to live up to this rule That might
involve headquarters.
5immy was such a river boss. There
fore when Mr. Daily of the firm of Morri-
son & DAILY unexpectedly found himself
contracted to deliver 5000, 900 feet of logs
at a certain date, and the logs an impos-
sibie number of! miles up stream, he call
ed in Jimmy.
Jimmy was a small man, changeless as
the Egyptian Sphinx. A number of years
ago French comic journal published a
series of sketches supposed to represent
the shah of Persia, influenced by various
emotions. Under each was an appropriate
label such as surprise, grief anger or
establishment. The portraits were identi-
cally alike and uniformly impassive.
Well, that was Jimmy. He looked al
ways 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 9TH
er. Whatever his small. compact
muscular body might be doing, the mask
OF his black and white imperturbability
reina ined always unchanged. 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
a time he might do something about it,
but always without explanation calmly.
with the lofty inevitability of fate. In
fact. he never explained himself even to
his employers.
DAILY swung his bulk back and forth in
the ONCE chair Jimmy sat bolt upright,
his black hat pendent between his knees
Il want you to take charge of the driy-
ing crew. Jimmy" said the big man. 81
want you to drive those logs down to our
boom as fast as you can. 1 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 word Two days later he and sixty
men were breaking rollways forty-five
miles up stream.
Jimmy knew as well as DAILY that the
latter had given him a hard task Twenty
days was too brief time. However, that
was none of his business
The logs, during the winter had been
piled In the bed of the stream. They ex-
tended over three miles of rollways. Jim
my 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 outward.
hover for a moment and roar into the
stream like grain from an elevator.
Shortly the narrows below the rollways
jammed. Twelve men were detailed as
the lam crew.. Their business was to
keep the stream free in order that the
constantly increasing supply from the roll
ways might not fill up the river. 1t was
not an easy business, nor very safe
AS the jam 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, a
very few. the luckiest, drifted into the
dam pond at Grand Rapids within few
days; the bulk damned and broke, and
damned again at a point a few miles be-
low the rollways. 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 It
was done In two. Then the rear" was
started. Men in the rear crew had to
see that every last log got into the cur
rent. and stayed there. When a Jam
broke, the middle of 1t 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
cheerfuliy into the water-with the rotten