A. M. Chisholm

“ They began to get out the logs, prying and boosting them with peavies, pulling and lifting and gradually moving in on the jam. There the logs were wedged into an apparently inextricable tangle; butts and tops thrust forth, piled at every conceivable angle. The jam was a threatening mass; a mighty engine lying inert, waiting for some one to touch the spring that should stir it to wild life. Somewhere down in the heart of the thing, far beneath the shaggy brown of its breast, were certain logs, set like triggers, which controlled the monster. ”

“ One day Mitchell dropped his saw as the last fibers of wood began to crack, and coolly walked under the falling tree. It was a piece of foolhardiness not uncommon among the youngsters in the bush, who had yet to learn that there were chances enough in life without creating more. If the tree falls fair and clean, as it does nine times out of ten, it is perfectly safe for a man with a cool head; but if the tree is not sawn true, or if there is a heavy wind, or if it twists in the fall from any cause, it is exceedingly dangerous.
Driscoll sneered at Mitchell. ”

“ Add to the complexities of the situation a beautiful uncertainty as to just when the jam will pull, and you get some idea of the most risky part of a riverman's job. He must be strong, quick on his feet, possessed of what is almost an intuition in the selection of his footing, and, above all, he must be without nerves.
Driscoll and Mitchell were good rivermen. They dug into the jam with their peavies with apparent carelessness, but, in reality, with great caution. ”

“ A man may walk under a hundred falling trees, quite calmly and taking his time, his eyes on the brown bulk leaning and threatening him with ever-increasing swiftness, and do it without once quickening his pace; but sooner or later, the trunk of some tree will lurch and leap at him with the deadly swiftness of a wild beast on its prey ”

“ Both men glanced upward, shoreward, and at each other, and sprang for safety with exceeding swiftness, but without haste. The moving logs were dotted with men doing likewise. They held their peavies across them at the waist, and bounded from log to log without pausing. Each contraction of the muscles was followed by another as automatically as the movement of a runner on level ground; and the effect was as if they spurned the rearing logs rather than gained a foothold with every leap.
Driscoll was slightly in front of Mitchell and nearer the breaking jam. ”

“ Driscoll consigned him to perdition afresh. The other men protested.
“It's sinful of yeez lads to act this way,” said Con Donovan, a veteran of the river. “Take shame to yerselves. Fight out yer grudge, if ye like; but don't charge murder on a man, nor threaten the coward's dirty shove when a jam pulls.”
“Mind your own business,” said Mitchell sulkily, and told him where to go to mind it.
“This is between him and me,” said Driscoll to Donovan. “We'll settle it as we like. It's fair for both. None of yez has call to butt in.” ”

“ He would get square, and he would give him warning.
“Maybe you think you can run on me,” he said to him as they stood on the platform of the little backwoods station waiting for the tote teams. “Well, you can't. I won't take nothin' more from you. You try it, and you'll go out of these woods in a blanket. It's comin' to you.”
Driscoll's reply was unprintable, and the feud was on.
Day after day and week after week in the bush, on the trail, and in the bunk house they snarled at each other like two strange dogs, but for want of a fresh, plausible pretext never came to blows. ”

“ When they fought, if they ever did fight, it would be to a finish, wearing the spiked boots of the river driver, and with no one to interfere. And meanwhile, if either could work the other an injury, he would do so. ”

“ But at this juncture, Bill Smith—who was Crooks & Cameron's best foreman, and a rough-and-tumble fighter to his fingers' tips, besides being exceedingly sober as his responsibilities demanded—entered the car from the rear; while the conductor, Rory McLachlin, a huge and hairy son of the Glen, entered from the baggage car. ”