WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LOG TRAIN
The following week found Dale and Owen fully settled at the camp of the
Wilbur-Balasco Lumber Company. Mr. Balasco had interviewed them for a
few minutes on the morning after their arrival, and had then placed
them under the directions of a foreman named Larson, a Swede, who could
speak fairly good English. They had gone back to the railroad station
for their trunks and valises, and were housed in a cabin at what was
called Yard 4, located at the head of the creek. The yards above No.
4 were without a waterway, and the timber had to be hauled down by
engines and by horses, although a flume was being built, from a hill
half a mile further on. When this was finished, a mountain stream was
to be turned into it, which would afford a waterway for all the timber
in that section, and also increase the flow in the creek running into
the Columbia.
Yard 4 was on a hillside, thickly overgrown with brush, and full of
loose stones, so the gang had to work at first with great care, for
rolling stones are conducive to twisted ankles and broken limbs. In
Larson's gang were sixteen foreigners, and the balance were Oregonians,
all muscular fellows, as tough as pine knots.
It must be confessed that both Dale and Owen found the work cut out for
them very hard. Larson was a driver, and never gave his men any rest if
he could help it.
"Mr. B'asco expect de work and we must do it," said the foreman.
"Nobody lak to see de work fall behind. Work up dare, den, an' show
what you can a-do." And the men did work up, although not without
growling.
At first Dale and Owen were placed among the barkers and sawyers, but
as soon as Larson heard that they had chopped down trees in Maine, he
let them try their skill on some of the smaller trees to be cut. They
went to work with all the skill they could command, doing exactly as
they had seen the other fellers do, and when the first tree came down
the foreman nodded approvingly.
"Dat's putty goot," he said. "Not so queek as I like, but maybe it goes
queeker by an' by, hey?"
"It will go quicker after we are used to it," answered Owen.
He was sorry that they had not been placed in the yard where Andy
Westmore and Bruce Howard were located. But there was no choice in
the matter, and he and Dale accepted what was offered to them without
hesitation.
"If we don't, Mr. Wilbur may think we're a couple of cranks," said
Dale. "As he was kind enough to pay our car-fare out here, we ought to
do all we can to please him."
"I shan't say a word--at least not this season," answered Owen.
One day was very much like another, until one afternoon Ulmer Balasco
paid a visit to the yard. He held a short, earnest talk with Larson,
and then ordered that about half of the timber cut should be taken up
to where the flume was rapidly approaching completion.
"But you said dat dat timber was needed on dare pig railroad contract,"
Owen heard Larson say.
"Never mind, Larson; do as I've ordered," answered Ulmer Balasco
sharply. "I'll take care of the contract. And there is no use of your
working the men to death. If you don't take care you'll have them
either quitting altogether, or striking for higher wages."
After that the work went on more slowly, and when a man of the gang
stopped to smoke out a pipeful of tobacco the foreman said little or
nothing. The lumber that had been ordered for the flume went up day
after day, and more followed, so that next to nothing was floated down
the creek, to help fill the railroad contract mentioned.
"I must say I can't understand what Mr. Balasco is driving at," said
Andy Westmore, when Dale and Owen came down to see him and Bruce
Howard, on the following Sunday. "Two months ago it was announced that
the company had taken a big contract from the P. C. & W. Railroad, and
that the work was to be shoved through without the slightest delay.
Everything went swimmingly until about two weeks ago. Then those two
yards were closed up, and now some of the lumber has been sent up to
the flume, instead of down to the Columbia. They'll never fill that
contract on time at this rate."
"Mr. Balasco ought to know what he's doing," said Owen. "Perhaps the
railroad is behind in payments."
"I have an idea he wants to get the flume done," put in Bruce Howard.
"As soon as that is finished he can send down all the lumber he
pleases, from Cat Hill."
"He can get all the lumber he wants right here," went on Andy Westmore.
"If he waits for the flume he'll be behind with his contract just as
sure as you are standing there."
A part of the Sunday afternoon was spent by Dale and Owen in penning
a long letter to Jefferson Wilbur, telling that gentleman of their
arrival at the camp, and mentioning what they were doing. Dale also got
out the mining papers that had belonged to his father, and made a copy
of the documents, and this copy was placed in the letter, which was
later on put in a sack along with many others for departure on the mail
train when it should stop at Tunley.
So far the young lumbermen had had but little to do with the majority
of the men around them, and nothing at all with those employed at the
yards beyond Number 4. They had paid one visit to the flume that was
building, and inspected with much interest the big trestle which was to
carry the timbered waterway from the side of one hill to the bottom of
the next.
As mentioned before, the railroad through the timber claim was a
winding one, reaching points a good distance from the creek, and from
Cat Hill, where the flume was located. The road was an old one, and
greatly in need of repair, but Ulmer Balasco would do nothing to it,
and had his men work on the flume instead.
Both Dale and Owen liked to ride on the trucks, and when an order came
for them to do some extra work at Yard 7, at the end of the railroad
line, both were delighted over the prospect.
"Now we'll have a chance to see part of the outfit that we haven't seen
before," said Owen, "and get a little breathing spell in the bargain."
A train was going down that afternoon at five, and Dale and Owen were
set at work with the rest of the gang, loading the trucks with eight
long sticks, five and six feet in diameter, that were wanted for some
special purpose by a mill down the river. The sticks, each seventy-five
feet long, were winched up on the trucks, and there fastened by big
chains, so that none of them might slip while rounding the sharp
curves. The fastening of three of these chains was left to Dale and
Owen, and they performed this duty exactly as they saw the others doing
the work.
"I can tell you what, there is some weight to those logs," remarked
Owen, when the stick train was ready to start. "If anything breaks
loose on the trip, something will get smashed."
"Are you young fellows going down?" asked one of the train hands.
"Yes," answered both.
"All right then, hop on. And to pay for the trip, suppose you take a
hand at one of the brakes?" And the man grinned.
"We can do that, too," said Dale promptly. "Where do you want us to go?"
"You can take this brake, and Webb can take the next. Old No. 1 aint
good for much any more, and we have to hold up for her all we can." He
referred to the locomotive, which had seen its best days, and should
have been on the scrap heap instead of trying to haul a load or hold it
back.
The line ran in the shape of the letter S, with a long, graceful curve
at the top, and a sharper curve at the bottom, where the roadbed ran
along the edge of a rocky gully. The grade was up hill and down, and
the track was a single one with six switches, used not alone for
turning out, but also for loading.
It had been showering, and although the sun was now shining once
more, the tracks were still wet and slippery. Here and there the tree
branches overhung in such a fashion that a person riding on the trucks
had often to duck to avoid getting struck by them.
"Don't let a limb hit you and knock you off," was Owen's final word
of caution, and then the whistle of the locomotive tooted, and with a
creak and a groan the log train started on its journey over the hills
and down to the yard below.
When the heavy train started, a thrill ran over Dale, and he grasped
the brake to steady himself. He was between the ends of two big logs
which were so high that he could scarcely look over them. Owen was to
the rear, and the train hand who had spoken to them was ahead, while
another hand was at the last truck. A thick volume of smoke came down
from the stack of the locomotive, and the young lumbermen had to guard
against cinders getting into their eyes as they sped along.
The first curve of the journey was made without much difficulty,
although trucks and chains creaked ominously as one big stick after
another switched around to the straight stretch beyond. Then came a
sharp down-grade, and the engineer whistled for brakes, and every man
jumped to do his bidding. An upgrade followed, and the brakes were
kicked off and on they went as before, over a low trestle and a switch
that bumped them so both Dale and Owen nearly lost their footing. Then
another down grade, and again the whistle for brakes.
Dale was hard at work when he heard a yell from Owen, and looking along
the big stick behind him, saw his chum standing up, waving his hand
frantically.
"The chain!" he heard, above the grinding of the wheels. "The chain has
broken! Look out!"
For a moment he did not comprehend, but then he realized the truth of
what had occurred. The chain on the truck behind had broken away from
the steel hook that held it, and now the heavy log was lurching forward
on the down grade, with all the weight on the front chain. It was
already close to the brake, and just as Dale leaped to the top of the
log in front it struck the rod and bent it over as if made of lead.
"If it only holds until we get around the curve!" thought Dale, and
wondered what he had best do. The train was going faster and faster,
and he could not notify the engineer of the trouble, for they would be
at the curve in thirty seconds more.
Cling! The front chain snapped, the loose end whipping over the log and
ringing sharply against the twisted brake. Then the big log lurched
forward and struck the log on which Dale rested with the impact of a
battering ram. There was a dull thud, and both logs swerved to the
right and the left as if about to leave the trucks entirely. Dale
clutched at his footing, tried to scramble up, and then pitched forward
into space. Owen, on the trucks in the rear, saw the logs swerve, and
saw the end of one hit some rocks beside the tracks. Then, to avoid a
crushing blow, he leaped from the swiftly moving train, struck some
thick brushwood on the down side of a hill, and disappeared like a
flash from view.