The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-12-30


| Thar they are both the two O. tkeml
from the front logs?"
There certainly, about hundred
yards up stream. fiickered and danced
a fftful spark, oscillating from side to
side with the motion of the log on
which the men evidently stood, though
could not distinguish their forms
through the darkness and binding
rain.
Two minutes more and the dread
procession had approached near enough
/ for us 70 distinguish the figures and
| their peril. They were standing near
the hither end of gigantic redwood
| trunk. the foremost of The hoating
| squadron of trees and logs. coming
down. as memorable rear guard, direct
| iy upon it, and threatening to over
whelnl, or snap, or crush it by sheer
weight if it offered the least obstacle
to their majestic onward sweep. The
two woodsmen had evidently chosen.
or rather shifted. their position as near
to the shore as possible, where they
could now see their friends standing by
| our lantern, just as we saw them by
| theirs. But the unequal distribution of
gravity which this very step of self
preservation involved, was every no
ment causing the tree to assume more
and more transverse position TO the
stream. so that il became evident to an
experienced eye that it was only mat
ter of time before it would again
stretch the same barriers from shore
| to shore that it had done before start
| ing upon its compulsory voyage. This.
| however. Intellectual as il would have
been to protect the lives upon it from
| the irresistible force now being pro-
| jected against it, was not destined TO
| be accomplished. Foot by foot the wall
| of trees and logs behind it was ap-
preaching. owing to the decreased NOS
mentum of the transverely floating tree
! in front.
| Suddenly a shrek divided the COM
paratively deep stiffness of the night, 50
| intent had all the actors been on the
| pressing necessity of the moment, even
to hazard an exclamation. A female fig
urc came flying down the slope from
| the camp above, and as she dashed to
the bank of the creek il became evil
dent that she was swinging a RATA
above her head. The leather thong
| whizZed through the air straight for the
men. standing now not more than fifty
feet abreast of us on the trunk of the
tree. Bill. who was holding the lam
tern, caught the moose, and. slipping it
over the head of Dan Higgins till the
thong caught around his waist. said, in
a voice we could hear from the bank:
Thar We are. / kin ketch on the
back o. the loop an make the bank S
quiek's yerself. hain't got no wife N
family to sport. noways. jump
So saying, both men leaped headlong
into the current. eight strong arms
straining every energy to drag them
through the eddy made by the tree,
now relieved of its weight, swinging
slowly around toward lengthwise of
the stream. Thirty feet and both men
4 1 f. E1arf Ice he
e great supporting beam was being driv-
e en- sheer endways down the channel,
! the shorter logs, now with free room to
+ play, surging and driving past it on
E every side. One of these bore straight
S down upon the woodsmen. With a gil
I gantic effort. bred from the dread dan
j ger before them, the pull upon the
, leather rope by the men on shore
seemed for a moment to make the near
ly submerged bodies fairly leap from
the water. Next moment both men dis
/ appeared from view beneath the pom
| derous trunk. and when, FIVE seconds
later. the burden at the end of the RATA
| was dragged TO shore. it was lighter by
one.
Nothing could be done for the gener-
, Gus and adventurous man who had i'm
a measure sacrificed his own single life
7 to save that of his married partner
for he might well have appropriated the
saving moose. But when. three DAYS
afterward his body was washed back
/. from the bar at the rivers mouth. not
! an eye was dry, and not a man was
, absent from the funeral procession of
! the rude woodsman who was not known
and as far as my Inquiries could
, stretch, never had been known--by any
other name than that of Bill."-San
. Francisco Argonaut.
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