The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1907-07-10
4 THE \
MADEIRA FLUME|
/ By DENISON HALEY Cliff. z

of civil engineering; but shortly after
the fall semester had opened, he
yielded to the demands of his college
mates and appeared on the football
field to try for the eleven.
He came from MADEIRA, a small
town in the sunny San Joaquin Val
ley, where he had been fiume-climber
for his fathers lumber company.
But to the enthusiasts of the univer-
sity world he was transformed from
the commonplace Clay Nelson, flume-
climber, to the great and more sig
nificant Bull" Nelson, varsity"
half-back.
His name became associated with
the veteran squad, and his line-buck-
ing made the coaches secretly jubi-
liant, until there came a day, shortly
before the big California game, when
his ankle snapped in the last prac-
tice, and his meteoric career was
over.
He took his disappointment with
q stoicism for which no one could
account. In the hospital after the
game he spent his days absorbing
principles of hydrostatics and study
ing critically designs of arch ribs,
while his ankle slowly knitted
One day his nurse handed him a
letter from his father, asking him to
come home, The flume boss" of
the MADEIRA company had deserted,
and Nelson alone could fill his place,
for the timber harvest was at its
full.
So when his ankle was strong
enough again he returned to the
mountains, and the mountains well
coined him. The hills and valleys
were freshing into green once more
under the soft pelting of the first
rains. The SHOWS upon the noun
tains were resolving themselves into
myriads of tiny streams that rippled
over stones and gravel, wandering
through hedges of witch-hazel and
manzanita until they Joined one an
other at the openings of the gullies
and raced down through the valleys
and the canons.
Among these valleys and noun
tains the MADEIRA lumber flume, which
is the longest in the world, threads
its way. Far up among the redwood
forests it begins, and winds down
among dense groves of spruce and
yellow pine, crossing chasms and
cataracts on trestles of steel, and
resuming again the wooden skids
when it crosses through the canons
and shallow ravines, skirting sheer
cliffs and boring through the tunnels
of the hills, till it falls at last into
the San Joaquin River.
AS climber, Nelson kept the fume
IN repair. Often he had to climb
among the maze of beams and
girders, high in mid-air, calking
leaks in the great V-shaped wooden
chute, down which redwood logs and
railway ties were shot from the
mountains to the river.
Along the flume were two tunnels,
one, the long tunnel, just beyond the
Brinkhead, a towering bluff skirted
by the flume. In this tunnel leak
sprung one day, until the loss of
water interfered with the traffic. The
tender at Geyser Peak, close to the
river end, first noticed the falling
off of the current
"The flow is dropping" he called
through the telephone to the head
of the flume.
The head logger called to Nelson.
At once the climber ordered the drive
stopped, and seizing his kit, he lifted
the, narrow fume boat into the chute
1nd drifted down toward the tunnel,
Sour miles away.
We'll cut off the feeders for an
hour, so watch your time" the head
logger called after him. Another
thousand feet must go down be-
Gore g."
1t was then o'clock. The short
boat carried Nelson rapidly along
the great lumber-hume, now close
along the ground, now bridging
canons and basins of granite, past the
Brinkhead, until at last the black
ness of the long tunnel enveloped
him. The grade lessons here to an
angle of fifteen degrees.
Nelson hooked the boat to the
side, and climbed over the edge to
the f1ume-step. Here the great V is
built up from three feet to seven from
its centre, that the logs may not leap
out in their mad race through the
tunnel.
Lighting the candle in his miners
pick, he began crawling along the
edge of the flume. Darkness closed
In tight about him, close and an
palling. He crept on deeper and
deeper, listening for dripping water
above the lick, lick, of the current
In the fiume. The candle threw a
wavering circle of light about him.
Far behind him he could see the
entrance of the tunnel.
After searching a long time he
found the leak. The licking of the
water in the immense groove was
lost in the drone of the tiny cataracts
ieaping forth between the sprung
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