Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-12-29
CHAPTER Ii.

y HE new nrln plunged DuS1ly into
8 pressing activities. Orde CON
stautIy interviewed men of all
kinds-riverInen, mill men, con-
tractors, boat builders, hardware deal
ers, pile driver captains, builders,
wholesale grocery men. cooks, axmen,
chore boys-all a little world in itself.
Downstream eight miles. below the
mills, and just beyond where the draw
bridge crossed over to Monrovia, Dun
can McLeod's shipyards steamed and
bent and boited away at two tugboats.
The spring burst into leaf and set,
tied into summer. Orde was constant
ly on the move AS soon as low wa
ter came with midsummer he departed
to Redding Here he Joined crew
which Tom North had collected and
went to the head of the river. Far
back on the headwaters he built q
dam. The gate operated simply and
could be raised to let loose an entire
flood And, indeed. this was the whole
purpose Of the dam. 1t created a res
ervoir from which could be freed new
supplies Of water to exc out the drop
ping spring freshets.
L
to where the river dropped over
rapids full of powders. Here were
built a row of stone filed log cribs in
q double row downstream to define
the channel and to hold the drive in
it and away from the shadows. At the
falls twenty-five miles below Orde pur-
posed his most elaborate bit of rough
engineering. The falls, only about
fifteen feet high. fell straight to a bed
OF sheer rock This had been eaten by
the eddies into potholes and crannies
until a jagged irregular scoop hollow
had formed Immediately underneath
the fall.
In food time the water roared
this obstruction in a torrent
The logs plunged end on into the
scoop hollow, hit with a crash and
were spewed out below more or less
battered. Sometimes. when the drive
brought down hundred logs together,
they failed to shoot over the barrier
of the ledge. Then followed a jam, a
bad jam, difficult and dangerous to
break.
This condition of affairs Orde bad
determined. if possible, to obviate.
"1f." said he to North, 1--WE could
carry an apron on slant from just
under the crest and over the potholes
it would shoot both the water and the
logs off a better ANGLE
Sure" agreed North, ''but youn
have fun placing your apron with all
that water running through. Why, it
would drown us"'
I've got a notion on that" said
Orde.
Into the forest went the axmen.
The straightest trees they felled,
and dragged down travoy
trails they constructed, on sleds they
built for the purpose, to the banks of
the river. Here they bored the two
holes through either end to receive the
bolts when later they should be locked
side by side in their places.
AS fast as they were prepared men
with canthooks rolled them down the
slope to a fat below the falls.
After the trees had been cut in suf-
fcient number Orde led the way back
upstream a half mile to a shadows,
where he commanded the construction
Of a number of exaggerated sawhorses
with very widespread slanting legs.
When the sawhOrses were completed
orde directed the picks and shovels
% be brought up.
Orde set his men TO digging a chan
nel through the bank. 1t was no slight
job, as the slope down into a swamp
began only at point forty or fifty feet
inland; but, on the other hand, the
earth was soft and free from rocks.
When completed the channel gave pas
sage to a rather feeble streamlet from
the outer fringe of the river.
Next Orde assigned two men to each
OF the queer shaped sawhorses and in
structed them to place the horses in
q row across the shallowest part of the
river and broadside to the stream.
This was done. The men, halfway to
their knees in the swift water hnra