Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-08-30

| But first his own safety must be as
sured. Under his armpits he fasten-
ed the end of the rope dangling from
the block high above. II was neces-
sarN to make one or two tests to see
that everything worked smoothly.
| GAIL ready" he shouted. From the
right bank came the response in Rob-
bins deep bass:
"Pull away boys!"
| A half-dozen Prince Edward Island
ers surged upon the rope, and Jules
was snapped ten feet into the air.
Don't do it so quick!" he shouted.
you'll break me in two. Once
again!"
This time they did better. Bur
no further experiments could be tried.
Robbins chafed at the delay; every
minute was precious. The French
man fell vigorously to work.
It was ten o'clock on May morn
ing. A thick river mist filed the
gorge. The men on the opposite banks
could hardly see one another, al
though the stalwart, red-shirted figure
on the logs below was plainly visible
from both sides.
The quick strokes of his ak re
sounded duly through the chasm;
and fifty pairs of eyes were To-
cused on him as he swung the
keen steel. Nothing could De
done until the jam was cleared.
Robbins, grasping a small spruce on
the verge of the bluff, leaned OUT
over empty space, his gaze liked on
the axman below, ready to give the
signal to pull to the expectant men
behind him.
Fast fell the strokes. The great
log was nearly cut through when the
foreman's practised eye saw that the
lam was beginning to weaken.
Grandgent himself, busy with his
chopping, did not observe this. ROD
bins uttered shout:
"There she goes! All right, Jules!
Up with him, boys!"
SO suddenly did the excited men
respond that the Frenchman was
snapped off the logs before he reallz-
! ed what was happening. His ak feW
from his hand.
The sudden shock jerked the rope
from the pulley-wheel. 1t fell back,
dropped between the wheel and
side of the block, and there stuck
fast. For the fraction of second the
men swayed at the rope. Then ROD
bins. who instantly realized the cat
astrophe that was imminent ii SIX
lusty men continued straining on one
small line of hemp, roared out at the
top OF his lungs:
"Stop hauling!"
At the very instant that Grand
gent was snapped up the jam had
broken. Impelled by the volume OF
logs and water behind it, the head OF
the drive came surging down the
Staircase with the thunder of an
avalanche, each separate stick seem
ingly endowed with life, rolling,
plunging, battling with its fellows.
Jules had fallen back so that his
boot-soles were only four or five feet
above the grinding mass. He was
| fully alive to his peril as he hung
there in the mist among the dartlng
leaping river monsters. A glance at
the taut rope extending from the
block to the bank told him what had
happened: and he raised both arms
over his head with the intention or
pulling himself up hand over hand.
But just at that moment a log
sprang out of the boiling turmoil and
struck his legt leg a heavy blow,
breaking the bone just below the knee
The sudden sharp pain made the
Frenchman faint. His arms dropped
and he hung half-insensible, spinning
slowly round and round, like a spider
at the end of it's thread!
The throat of the gorge was now
a veritable maelstrom. From head to
foot the rapids were in motion,
rough, irregular floor of heaving logs,
all of which must pass through that
narrow chasm in which the French
man hung. In that raging pit no man
could call his life his own from one
second to another
How could the lumbermen rescue
their comrade? For the first time IN
his twenty years of river driving
Robbins was at loss for expedlents.
The hauling line had evidently
caught so firmly in the block that no
effort could disengage it. Had the
main cable itself been longer, 1t might
have been possible to unite its enos
from the tree trunks and draw IL
across the river; but there had Deen
barely enough to be made fast at
either end.
To the knot in its middle the block
had been tied so firmly that it was
useless to hope to loosen it; tug
strong enough to break its BONDS
might tear asunder the rope itself.
Any one of a dozen men woClo
gladly have gone out or the caple'
hand over hand, and cut the pulley
! o1ear ca tha+ If might be drawn IN