第90章

Ten miles along the river bed, the stream dropped over a little half-falls into a narrow, rocky gorge.It was always an anxious spot for the river drivers.In fact, the plunging of the logs head-on over the fall had so gouged out the soft rock below, that an eddy of great power had formed in the basin.Shearer and Thorpe had often discussed the advisability of constructing an artificial apron of logs to receive the impact.Here, in spite of all efforts, the jam had formed, first a little center of a few logs in the middle of the stream, dividing the current, and shunting the logs to right and left; then "wings" growing out from either bank, built up from logs shunted too violently; finally a complete stoppage of the channel, and the consequent rapid piling up as the pressure of the drive increased.Now the bed was completely filled, far above the level of the falls, by a tangle that defied the jam crew's best efforts.

The rear at once took the trail down the river.Thorpe and Shearer and Scotty Parsons looked over the ground.

"She may 'pull,' if she gets a good start," decided Tim.

Without delay the entire crew was set to work.Nearly a hundred men can pick a great many logs in the course of a day.Several times the jam started, but always "plugged" before the motion had become irresistible.This was mainly because the rocky walls narrowed at a slight bend to the west, so that the drive was throttled, as it were.It was hoped that perhaps the middle of the jam might burst through here, leaving the wings stranded.The hope was groundless.

"We'll have to shoot," Shearer reluctantly decided.

The men were withdrawn.Scotty Parsons cut a sapling twelve feet long, and trimmed it.Big Junko thawed his dynamite at a little fire, opening the ends of the packages in order that the steam generated might escape.Otherwise the pressure inside the oiled paper of the package was capable of exploding the whole affair.

When the powder was warm, Scotty bound twenty of the cartridges around the end of the sapling, adjusted a fuse in one of them, and soaped the opening to exclude water.Then Big Junko thrust the long javelin down into the depths of the jam, leaving a thin stream of smoke behind him as he turned away.With sinister, evil eye he watched the smoke for an instant, then zigzagged awkwardly over the jam, the long, ridiculous tails of his brown cutaway coat flopping behind him as he leaped.A scant moment later the hoarse dynamite shouted.

Great chunks of timber shot to an inconceivable height; entire logs lifted bodily into the air with the motion of a fish jumping; a fountain of water gleamed against the sun and showered down in fine rain.The jam shrugged and settled.That was all; the "shot" had failed.

The men ran forward, examining curiously the great hole in the log formation.

"We'll have to flood her," said Thorpe.

So all the gates of the dam were raised, and the torrent tried its hand.It had no effect.Evidently the affair was not one of violence, but of patience.The crew went doggedly to work.

Day after day the CLANK, CLANK, CLINK of the peaveys sounded with the regularity of machinery.The only practicable method was to pick away the flank logs, leaving a long tongue pointing down-stream from the center to start when it would.This happened time and again, but always failed to take with it the main jam.It was cruel hard work; a man who has lifted his utmost strength into a peavey knows that.Any but the Fighting Forty would have grumbled.

Collins, the bookkeeper, came up to view the tangle.Later a photographer from Marquette took some views, which, being exhibited, attracted a great deal of attention, so that by the end of the week a number of curiosity seekers were driving over every day to see the Big Jam.A certain Chicago journalist in search of balsam health of lungs even sent to his paper a little item.This, unexpectedly, brought Wallace Carpenter to the spot.Although reassured as to the gravity of the situation, he remained to see.

The place was an amphitheater for such as chose to be spectators.

They could stand or sit on the summit of the gorge cliffs, overlooking the river, the fall, and the jam.As the cliff was barely sixty feet high, the view lacked nothing in clearness.

At last Shearer became angry.

"We've been monkeying long enough," said he."Next time we'll leave a center that WILL go out.We'll shut the dams down tight and dry-pick out two wings that'll start her."The dams were first run at full speed, and then shut down.Hardly a drop of water flowed in the bed of the stream.The crews set laboriously to work to pull and roll the logs out in such flat fashion that a head of water should send them out.

This was even harder work than the other, for they had not the floating power of water to help them in the lifting.As usual, part of the men worked below, part above.

Jimmy Powers, curly-haired, laughing-faced, was irrepressible.He badgered the others until they threw bark at him and menaced him with their peaveys.Always he had at his tongue's end the proper quip for the occasion, so that in the long run the work was lightened by him.When the men stopped to think at all, they thought of Jimmy Powers with very kindly hearts, for it was known that he had had more trouble than most, and that the coin was not made too small for him to divide with a needy comrade.To those who had seen his mask of whole-souled good-nature fade into serious sympathy, Jimmy Powers's poor little jokes were very funny indeed.

"Did 'je see th' Swede at the circus las' summer?" he would howl to Red Jacket on the top tier.

"No," Red Jacket would answer, "was he there?""Yes," Jimmy Powers would reply; then, after a pause--"in a cage!"It was a poor enough jest, yet if you had been there, you would have found that somehow the log had in the meantime leaped of its own accord from that difficult position.

Thorpe approved thoroughly of Jimmy Powers; he thought him a good influence.He told Wallace so, standing among the spectators on the cliff-top.