J. Allan Dunn

“ Through the winter, as trees were felled, swampers prepared the skid-roads, scalers gauged the cut, teamsters sledded the logs down to the river over the iced ways, while the snubrope men eased them down the declines; the fear was dormant. Spring was heralded. The rains came, the river broke its frozen bonds and the crew went gaily to its banks and prepared to spill the great rollways where the logs had been piled high, sidewise to the stream; making ready for highwater to commence the drive.
Fleming had hard work to keep up the study on his course in engineering mechanics. ”

“ It was Alouise who helped Fleming to adapt himself. While her father lamented the old days of Bangor, of Saginaw, of runs on the Kennebec, the girl, with all the details of modern logging clear in her mind, talked of new methods with his new assistant. He did not know that she admired his gravity, his determination to go ahead, to master all the branches of the business. She was human enough, she liked to dance, to ride, to swim, to talk nonsense, but she was modern, energetic, womanly, but eager to accomplish something worth while. ”

“ Reeves had to score deep to ensure the proper fall of the top when he sawed-in opposite his cut. He had to judge every blow to a nicety; to gauge the wind, the symmetry of the crown, things instinctive enough to any experienced feller but assuming an acuter problem when tackled a hundred and fifty feet from the ground. The top would fall before he had sawed clean through, it would leave more or less of a nub that Spider, with due pride in turning out a perfect job, would clear away before he went down for his light block and tackle. ”

“ She wasn't in love with Spider, her woman's instinct told her that he was unstable as water, uncertain as the wind. But the sight of that gallant figure appealed to other feminine instincts in her, awakening to the sight of a man excelling in strength, taking grave risks with a light in his eyes and a smile on his lips. ”

“ Fleming called at the store, which had dwelling rooms attached, and found Reeves ahead of him. Spider made a face at him, sufficiently friendly, but the look of a rival. The two men got along well enough though their temperaments differed.
“Alouise tells me she promised to go with you for a walk,” he said. “You've got to take me along. Starting a new setting tomorrow and I've got to rig a spar. Never can tell what might happen. So you can't shake me. You can choose your own way but I'm tagging. You haven't got the heart to say no, neither of you. Suppose poor Spider gets a ride?” ”

“ A week more and he was in Washington, the last stand of Big Timber. He was through with the pineries. Now it was Douglas fir, giants of first growth, with some cedar and hemlock.
He applied at an agency. The agent asked him swift questions, surveying his strong, supple figure, his hands, with quick appreciative appraisal; using terms unfamiliar, though he guessed their meaning.
“You ain't a high-rigger? I could land you pretty. What are you? Hook-tender, chaser, choker setter? You don't look like a fireman, or a donkey puncher. I can use any of 'em. Fallers, buckers and swampers.” ”

“ He saw Alouise, and he waved his hand.
He was not through yet. It was no easy task properly to fasten the bight about Reeves, securing it to his belt, to hold the senseless body while he unsnapped the body cord. But it was done at last and he gave the signal. Men tailed on the rope, easing down their burden.
Fleming leaned back. He was tired with his supreme efforts but he was jubilant. There was new strength and purpose in him. Again he looked down to see Alouise waving her scarf at him. The rope came up to him with a loop in it, into which he stepped. ”

“ When the term commenced and Alouise began to teach in the little school, he had idle hours in which he used to test himself. If he could climb, gaze down—but he must not do that at first. He got a belt and rope and spurs and, in some place where he would not be overlooked, he made his first timorous essays.
The trunk soared skyward above him to what seemed an unbiddable height. Fleming tested his rope and belt, clasped the trunk, set in his spurs and lifted himself, hitching up the circling cord and leaning back a little. It was much the way a South Sea Islander goes after coconuts. ”

“ The defeated fear would be a trophy. She would understand. She wanted a man to be strong in every way. She frankly admired the daring of Reeves. Reeves, inclined to be a will o' the wisp in love, sought out by other girls, attached himself to Alouise. ”

“ There was one mill in the state, Alouise told him, that produced half a million feet of fir lumber for every eight hours its headsaws ran. The mammoth bull donkey engines—wood yarders—weighed thirty tons, handling steel cables nineteen hundred feet in length, one eighth of an inch short of two in thickness, hauling in logs at a speed of four hundred and forty feet a minute. The handlers had to know how to splice wire rope. ”

“ Now ice had welded the logs together and nothing short of destructive dynamiting would stampede the ways. They had to break them out from the top, tier by tier, timber by timber.
Fleming was assigned to the work, heaving with his heavy, steel-shod peavey, putting the strength of his shoulder and back muscles into it, loosening the grip of the ice, sending the big trunk rolling down to the bouldered beach. He worked forward from the rear of the huge stack to the rivermost log and pa for a moment to wipe the sweat from his eyes. ”

“ Now they built a standard gauge railroad into the new area, taking in six-drummed donkey engines especially designed by mechanical engineers to move the big timbers over the rough lands of the Douglas fir forests. The old ground-lead system was done away with, where, no matter how swampers cleared roads or snipers shaped the butts like sled-runners, the logs would hang up and cables snap, with loss of life and time. High-lead logging was the order of the new day and the lumberjacks became timber mechanics. ”

“ In a coward these recollections may stimulate the emotion of fear, in a bully, those of hatred, You are neither.
“In the trenches you won out with the rally of pride and patriotism, the desire to prove yourself brave. A man may hear or see something that causes him to fly into a rage, but he tells himself that it is not wise to do so. ”

“ The men had to have a knowledge of rigging, of mechanics. There were railroad crews, graders, bridge-builders tracklayers and operating crews. Blacksmiths and donkey and doctors and punchers. Specialists everywhere, hookmen, high-riggers, choker setters and firemen. Of the old-timers there remained the swampers and snipers, woodbucks and loaders, whistle punks to signal the action of the cable, filers, the bull cook and his flunkeys. ”

“ A small cascade at the head, falling to a streamlet, Reeves insisted upon walking.
“I've got to climb all day tomorrow,” he said, “Let me tread the good old earth while I can. Listen, Alouise, tomorrow's Armistice Day. You get a holiday. We poor timber mechanics have got to labor. Contracts are contracts. What is the mere memory of past glory? Fleming won't get a chance to wear his croix de guerre and I, a 'umble ranker, as the Tommies say, can't sit around and swap yarns of how we licked the Boches.”
“You didn't tell me you had a decoration,” said Alouise to Fleming. ”

“ From one man, born on the eastern slope, who took a notion to him, he learned the mechanics of block and tackle, lifts and leverages. He studied knots and splices as eagerly as an advanced boy-scout and became acquainted with the principles of rigging the lead cables and overheads that upheld the heavy butts and sent them along without drag. ”

“ The scientific names of ailments always make them sound worse than they are.
“It's a common and sound theory that all things come to us through our senses, rousing emotions to which man, as opposed to the beast, applies reason. ”

“ Reeves' bandanna caught on the snag of an untrimmed limb, that jerked it from the light grasp he had upon it. It came fluttering down, scarlet in the sun.
“Thet's sure bad luck,” said the swamper near Fleming. “Fer a high-rigger to lose anything while he's climbin', thet's the worst kind of a hoodoo. Allus works,”
“Aw, what's a handkerchief? If it was his ax or his saw, now.”
“You wait an' see. It allus works, I tell ye. Means his mind ain't on the job. Thinking of the gel instead of the tree.”
“You talk like an old woman. He's up to his mark now, starting to undercut.” ”

“ He was up to Reeves now and then the supreme test came. His own body cord was unable to pass the other until he undid its snaps, putting it about the tree above Reeves'. Fleming clamped hard with his knees, drove his spurs deep, caught with one hand at the taut rope that supported Spider, got it clear—and then he was past. The block and long rope were free, its ground end carefully tended by the superintendent. ”

“ But there ate certain phenomena, such as this fear of yours, that are inherent, protoplasmic, handed on through the generative cells; persistent, though they may not manifest themselves in every generation. ”

“ Fleming nodded, went to work. The fear had passed, but the memory, the shame of it, were still vivid. The incident did not pass undiscussed. He was known as a good man. Little things make up the riverman's talk. He overheard one verdict that seemed to be generally accepted.
“Touch of that damn gas, I reckon. He got it good, they say. Got a “Craw dee Gare” on top of it. Much good thet does a man.”
That shamed him too. But he did not contradict it. The rollways were broken out, the drive started. The logs reached the sawmill boom down river and he was paid off. ”

“ It was approved practice to break down the rollways by teasing and prying out the lowermost and outer log on a rollway, when the upper tiers were apt to come crashing, roaring down to the river bed, there to lie on the ice until the flood waters bore them off, or be carried away by the already running current. ”