The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1915-12-16
From ahead came shouts and q

1Qey stopped dt Iuc lOOI VI Iuc
ridge where the donkey, the rollway
and the track terminal huddled
against the bold uplift, and Daily in
troduced him to Hastings and Murphy,
the latter Of whom hung out Of the
window of his diminutive cab and
peered at the stranger out OF laugh
ing eyes whose forbears had twinkled
on Donegal's blue bay and Erin's red
checked daughters with impartial Joy.
"Ah, Misther Dillingworth," he said
heartily, AN phat dye tink av the
West Coast now?"
"Sandry, Murphy" caught up Daily
easily, yet with a warning note.
"Shure! Sandry tbs! Excuse me,
Misther Sandry, but amt tn scenery
~foine?"
What I've seen, yes, Murphy" an
swered Sandry after a slight pause.
AS he turned after Daily the Irishman
stuck his tongue in the corner Of his
lips and drummed a minute on the
sill, the broad smile lessening on his
reckless face.
"An PLAT dye know about thot?"
he asked retrospectively Of the fog.
Out Of the nea gloom, which was
tightening a bit with dawn, the log
trail rose, an aggressive snakelike
trough climbing uncompromisingly at
IN angle OF SO degrees, it's center a
straight pine log sunk to its surface,
which was polished like ivory, it's
slightly curving sides the same. How
many tapering trunks had gone into
Its two miles would be hard to say, for
in some places they had sunk and
been covered-in the dip, say, I'VE the
ridge where the real mountain began,
at the turn where it wound around the
Shoulder.
Before ten minutes Sandry was
breathing heavily, though he said
nothing and kept close at Daily's
heels. The logger strobe forward and
upward with an easy, climbing lift
that rippled every muscle in his loose
body, while the man from the cities
strained and heaved in painful labor,
slipping on the wet earth, floundering
in the rotten bark and brush that
lined the way. They climbed beside
the trail, not in it. Ahead Of them the
gang Of men had long since disap-
peared from sight and hearing.
The forenoon hat followed was the
opening page in a new chapter of his
life, and Sandry bent all his faculties
to a grasp of outlines.
He stood silently watching the work
go forward, They had reached the
cutting. Here, in a wide dip high
above the world, it seemed to the
Fastener, was a huge circle Of activ-
ity. Close beside the built trail a sec
ond donkey engine fused and
screamed, reaching out uncannily on
all sides for the great logs, to haul
them in with screech of spool and
strain of cable and turn them over to
the mysterious steel rope that came
constantly crawling back on it's trav-
cling line. This was called the yard
ing engine"-the n at the foot OF
the trail beside the rollway and the
track being known as the "roader."
The monotonous song Of the cross
cut saws had begun where the buck
ers were converting several hundred
and-ffty-foot trunks into handling
sections.
A little below, two foot-wide planks
some five or six feet long had been set
into a giant yellow pine about eight
feet from the ground, n on either
side, and on these two men were stand
ing, their flannel shirts open at the
throat, their sleeves rolled up from
arms Of steel and leather, their heads
bare. Sandry watched the bending of
their backs, every muscle outlined
under the clinging shirts, the play OF
their knee, the whole easy ripping
Of their entire bodies with the regular
give and take of the long saw. The
boards, known as s~pringboards, rose
and dipped with the ever motion.
These men were f~allers, and pres
emily they would lay the towering
NOR ,rch of the great woods to the
fraction of an inch in a given place,
ready for the buckers, the hoOk-tender
and the cable.
In the meantime the logs already
down were swiftly strii ped of their
limbs, cut into thirty and forty foot
lengths, rolled into the trail with
peavey and cant hook. and sent up and
over the ridge to the accompaniment
of shrill toots from the whistle-bob's
restless cord, the straining Of rigging
and the squeak Of fiber on polished
fiber.
The built trail ended here in the
shallow hollow between the first
ridge and the great mountain beyond,
though up III face of the latter it was
prolonged by a cleared path sharply
defined among the dense .rowth of
the timber.
He was impressed by the magnitude
of the country. On every hand the
lifting hills were clothed in trees, close
packed and of such girth and height
as to seem almost g~rotesQuely impos-
sible. Humanity was dwarfed to in
significance, like an ant crawling on
q cathedral column.
Sandry looked around. Up to this
distance the woods were dotted with
49, -