OVER THE RAPIDS
Following the river trail, and being welcomed freely to the temporary
camps of the gangs of “brow-breakers,” at a little past noon of the
second day, Ed and his companions of the winter’s logging camp came to
the head of the drive on North Fork.
The heavy rains had set in, and the river, swollen by the floods of
melted snow, was already a torrent of crashing, grinding ice cakes.
As the ice went out, the river would be filled with the booming
logs, which floated loosely, often banks full for miles, from the
disintegrating “brows” along the stream.
Instead of meeting his brother, as he had hoped, Ed was informed that
Rob had been sent over to the wangan above Big Bull, where the drive on
the main stream was already in motion. The boss, looking over the small
stature of Ed, remarked, “They’re wanting polers over there, and we
don’t want any more here. As a sacker you wouldn’t be any more account
than a muskrat, anyhow.”
Although Ed was stockily built, he was quick with his feet, and
practice had gained him confidence upon the floating logs, so poling
would be just what he would desire.
Ten miles across the country of forest and swamp, where the land
was a “saturated solution” and every little creek aspiring to be a
river, was not a pleasing prospect for a boy, but there was no other
way open. That journey lived in Ed’s memory for years as a hideous
nightmare. Plashing in mud, tearing through thickets of briers and
underbrush, wading shallow, icy creeks--and swimming one that was
too deep to wade--losing himself in the darkness, stumbling along
blindly, by chance--or, we had better say, by the guiding hand of good
Providence--Ed finally came to the brink of the river, and knew by the
depth of the overflow that he had reached the stream above Big Bull dam.
Again Providence guided his choice, and he turned downstream and soon
came in view of the campfires of the drive. Too utterly exhausted to do
aught else, Ed stretched himself by a big log fire among the sleeping
men, to get what rest he might, in the short space of the night that
remained.
It was yet dark when the voice of the boss aroused him, and he followed
with the men to their early breakfast of pork and beans, biscuit and
syrup, and strong, black coffee.
There he soon found Rob, and the meeting compensated Ed for the
hardship of the journey. Rob told him that Bally Tarbox had arrived the
night before, and had taken charge of the drive, and he had looked for
Ed to come over and join the polers.
While the work of the polers was more dangerous than that of the
sackers, it was much more agreeable, and, too, the wages were three
dollars a day, while the pay of the sackers was but a dollar and a
quarter to a dollar and a half.
By the time a dim twilight told that another cloudy day had begun, Rob
and Ed, with their long ash poles to balance themselves, were upon the
river, riding the logs as they floated along with the rapid current.
The water had been held back by the big dam until a great drive of
logs had gathered, and then the gates were opened for the logs to rush
through and on down the river with the falling waters. It was the work
of the polers to see that none of the logs lodged in the mouths of the
little creeks, and to keep them moving while they were in the river.
It was inevitable that some of the logs should remain stranded upon
the banks as the water receded, and this brought in the work of the
sackers. Their implements were not long poles, such as the log riders
used, but stout staves about five feet in length. Upon one side of
each was a steel hook, and in the end a long, sharp spike. These were
called “peaveys.” Where the stranded log was small and at some distance
from the water, a row of men would approach it upon either side, and,
picking it up bodily with their hooks, would carry it to the river.
Where the log was too large to carry, it would be rolled over and over
at a rapid rate until it went splashing into the water.
It not infrequently happened that a big log would be found in such a
position that the sackers would be obliged to wade out into the icy
water waist deep before the great trunk would float free.
Many a time Ed and Rob had been thankful for their good fortune as
polers when they would hear the boss roll out a torrent of curses upon
the sackers as they hesitated upon the icy plunge on some particularly
cold morning.
While the sackers might count on being wet every day, and nearly all
day of every day, the polers were by no means exempt from that source
of discomfort. Frequently, in making the jump from one log to another,
a foot would slip, or, the distance miscalculated, a sudden bath be
provided among the crashing logs.
Again, a moment of careless inattention would deliver the log rider to
the tender mercies of a “sweep,” or an unsettling blow from another
log. Sometimes, when the river must needs be crossed, a log would be
selected as the ferrying raft which would prove too light to sustain
the weight of the rider, and the sackers would howl their derision at
the poler being “bucked” into the water by his “steed.”
Rob never forgot one such experience he had on Easter Sunday of that
year. It was just after the gates had been lifted at Jennie Bull dam,
and the crew of an hundred and fifty men were striving with all their
might to hurry all the logs through before the water should go down.
The day had opened bleak and dreary. A raw wind swept down the river
from the north, cutting faces like a saw, and the poor sackers, wet to
the waist, were in the depths of misery. Then, shortly after noon,
the leaden skies began to spit snow, and a little scum of ice appeared
along the edges of the stream. What an Easter Day! Rob and Ed, to whom
memories of other Resurrection Sabbaths in the city came, with their
lilies and joy and song, could be thankful that, so far, they were on
the logs, dry, and compared with the sackers, warm.
The polers were stationed on the booms--long logs fastened
together--and by throwing their poles with the sharp, steel spikes
into the floating logs would pull them along and so hasten their exit
through the gate of the dam.
At four o’clock it was already dark, and it would be impossible to see
clearly enough to work more than an hour longer--but the drive must
be taken through; there could be no waiting until tomorrow. Hurry!
hurry! were the orders. Rob, in his hurry, as he threw his weight upon
a backward pull with his pick pole, suddenly felt his hold give way,
and over he went backward into the river. Luckily, the logs were not
running thickly where he came to the surface hatless, and that he was
a strong swimmer, for a few strokes brought him to the boom and to
possession again of his pole.
Oh, if he might go to the wangan camp, there before the logheap fire to
wring out his streaming, freezing clothing and get back a little warmth
into his stiffening limbs. But no! _The logs must be run through the
dam_, and that at once. Every man was needed, and nothing short of
death itself would be recognized by the boss as an excuse for failure
to stay by the job. During the next hour Rob many times wondered if he
would not be able to give that excuse and so escape from the misery of
his position, as he labored clumsily in his freezing clothes.
Day by day the cooking outfit, with the sleeping blankets--one for each
man--went down river ahead of the drivers as far as the day’s work
would probably land them. It can be imagined that stores necessary
for nearly two hundred men, to be carried by boats, would be of the
simplest character--pork, flour, beans, syrup, and coffee, made the
basis for the daily fare, but the five meals a day were eaten with a
hearty relish by these strenuous toilers.
As a rule a dry spot was selected for the camping place, and big tents
stretched for protection overhead, but the one blanket to the man and
the bare ground for the bed, left something to be desired, even in
dry weather. When, of necessity, the camping place was wet, and the
weather freezing, the day suffering of the men was but a prelude to the
real agony of the night. On this drive of which I write it happened
that more than once the wet clothing of the Allen boys, in which they
“slept,” was found to be frozen to the earth in the morning.
Running the river was no job for a weakling--such a one never undertook
the experience the second time, nor long for the first time. It was
work that told heavily upon the strongest of constitutions; few of
these men lived to be old, the majority falling victims to pneumonia or
tuberculosis.
A little below the third of the big dams the river cuts through a
stretch of rocky country, ending in a rather steep rapids which have a
drop of something like twenty feet. From the points of rock sticking
out at almost regular intervals, across the stream, above the current
in low water, the falls became known as “Squaw Walk Rapids.” Just below
the rapids the river takes a sharp turn, and there, in the great, deep
whirlpool was Dead Man’s Hole--a place believed by the rivermen to be
sure to take its toll of human life each spring.
No log rider was so foolhardy as to attempt the passage over the rapids
and through the whirlpool of his own will; few indeed--none, it was
said--had made the trip in safety, having been caught in the fierce
rush of the waters above, and drawn over the rapids on their logs.
The day had been clear, and, the depression of spirit caused by the
days of suffering lifting, a spirit of roystering play and rough joking
possessed the men. The polers, selecting small logs, just large enough
to sustain their weights, were giving exhibitions of fancy riding in
mid-stream.
A great shout of glee from Ed Allen caused Rob to look back up the
river. There he saw, coming majestically down toward them, a great log
upon which were seven or eight sackers, taking an unauthorized ride.
But there was something in the program of that ride which they had not
planned, for quickly, relentlessly, they were approaching a low-hanging
“sweep”--a tree stretched out over the water. Frantically they paddled
with their peaveys, striving to throw the course of the big log out
into the stream away from the threatening danger, but without avail.
The log struck the sweep, the momentum bending the body of the tree
sharply--when, as the log rolled slightly, it was released, and with a
lightning-like spring, as with a mighty hand the men were brushed off,
helter-skelter into the river.
The whole occurrence was indescribably funny to the onlookers, and the
polers were dancing up and down on their logs in high glee, shouting
mock encouragement to the luckless men in the water--when a roar
suddenly brought a check to their merriment. Glancing again down stream
the boys saw the logs ahead of them begin to rise and plunge in the
foaming water, and they realized that they were nearing the rapids.
Now was the time for putting forth all their strength. Unless they
should be able to bring their logs to shore, they would be carried over
into the boiling cauldron below. How puny was their strength matched
against the grip of that mighty current. The banks seemed to be rushing
by. Here and there jagged rocks rose above the surface as if to drag
them down. Their small logs were dancing like corks. It was almost
impossible to retain footing.
“It’s no use--were’s in for it,” shouted Rob above the roar of the
water and crashing of the logs, as he threw the sharp point of his pole
into Ed’s log and brought the two together. “Stick your pole into my
log and hold on--we’ll go together.”
The boys never lost the picture of that awful moment at the brink of
the rapids--the sharp rocks churning the river into milky foam; the
logs leaping and, striking, going end over end; the indescribable roar
and confusion--the coming of Death with the demand that he be looked
squarely in the face. I am sure that both boys prayed--and then the
blue sky, and the sun overhead, the rushing river, and the crashing
logs--and themselves, ceased to exist.
How or by whom they were rescued from the river below, neither of the
boys ever knew. But their apparently lifeless bodies had been carried
to camp and there, after long exertion, they had been brought back to
life and consciousness.
For that season, at least, Dead Man’s Hole had been robbed of its prey.
After the drive had come through the lowest dam and passed the rapids
there came days so ideal that the rivermen could not believe they were
the same fellows that so short a time ago would have almost welcomed
death, if only they might have escaped their miseries.
Great, snow-white clouds lazily floated overhead in the deep blue; the
sun filtered down upon the river in patches of golden warmth; the men,
out of sight of the boss, stretched themselves luxuriously upon big
logs, and floated with the current. Save for the occasional stoppage of
a jam the days were, as Bally Tarbox put it, “one continual picnic with
five hot meals a day throwed in.”
There were occasional days of shivering cold; days of lowering clouds
and steady rain, when river and sky seemed to mingle, and beds of
sodden earth brought no comfort at the close of sodden days. But each
day’s run brought the drive further down into the deeper channel and
higher banks of the lower river, where the labor was less severe, and a
night of dry lodging and a meal of home cooking could occasionally be
had from the home of some pioneer settler.
The days grew longer, the trees budded, and some varieties broke forth
into tender leaf. From overhead shrill choruses of red-wing blackbirds
greeted the slow-moving procession. Woodducks and mallards and teal,
in all their courting finery, sailed along in the clear spaces between
the floating logs, quick to make a distinction between the peaveys of
the river men and the gun of the cook. Squirrels, red and grey and coal
black, chattered and scolded as they scampered from bough to bough.
Occasional glimpses were had of raccoons fishing for “crabs” on jutting
sand bars, and the sliding plunge of an otter might be heard as one
awakened in the night.
Life was coming back to revel and riot in the big woods, and the men
passing through were not untouched by its tide.
While the main drive passed down the river rapidly, it was inevitable
that the slower work of the sackers would leave many logs hung upon the
banks by the failing waters. These would be more slowly worked to the
river bed, in some cases with ox teams, and then, a good deal of water
having been stored up above the dams to augment the later rains, a
“sack drive” would bring the stragglers down to the big boom at Necedah.
By the time the Allen boys reached the half-mile stretch of straight
river which marked one boundary of their home place, there was not much
need of their services as polers longer, as the river banks were high,
and there was little work save for the jam breakers at the head of the
drive. So it was, that as the familiar buildings came into view, they
bade farewell to their river companions and were welcomed at home.