CHAPTER XII.
Wolves—Log Riding.
Many experiences of meeting or seeing the more dangerous of the wild animals have been related by men whose occupation as woodsmen has made it necessary at times to go for days, unaccompanied into the woods, and miles distant from any human habitation. Personal experience leads me to believe that man is safe, nearly always, except when such animals are suffering from hunger.
Early one spring, while the snow was yet deep in the woods, I was scaling some trespass of timber that lay about three miles away from my headquarters camp. In going to my work, mornings, I passed along a trail near to which, in the deep snow, was the carcass of a horse which had belonged to the owner of a near-by lumber camp. I noticed, one morning, that it had been visited during the night by a pack of wolves that had fed upon it and had gone away, using the trail for a short distance and then leaving it, their tracks disappearing into the unbroken forest. The following morning, having gotten an early start, on passing this same place, I saw the wolves leaving their feeding place and disappearing by the same route as the tracks indicated on the preceding morning. The animals seemed to be as anxious to get out of my sight, as I was willing to have them. Had it not been for their full stomachs, their actions, likely, would have been different.
Returning, on a subsequent day just before nightfall, tired from a long day's work, and, probably, because of the late hour, thinking of my near by neighbors, the wolves, I committed an act that came near costing me my life. The ice had gone out of the streams, and the spring drive of logs was at its height. To reach camp by the usual way, it was necessary to follow up the stream one mile and cross on a dam that had been constructed by the lumbermen to hold back water to use in driving logs out of this stream, which at this point was about two hundred and fifty feet wide. The gates were open, and the water was running high within the banks of the stream. Seeing, in the eddy close to the bank of the river, a large log that would scale at least one thousand feet board measure, I was seized with the idea that I could, with the assistance of a pole, step onto that log, push it out from shore, and guide it across the stream to the opposite shore. It was a log that had been skidded to the bank of the river and rolled in. On such logs, the bark on the under side is always removed to reduce the amount of friction produced by one end of the log dragging, while it is being hauled to the water's edge. The "log driver" belongs to a class of men that has produced many heroes, and some of their exploits are among the most thrilling recorded among the exigencies of a hazardous occupation. I never was of that class, and was almost entirely without experience in trying to ride logs in open water. I had pushed the log out into the stream some distance and all was lovely, as every minute it was approaching nearer to the opposite shore. Suddenly it entered the current of the river which quickly revolved the log under my feet, bringing the peeled side uppermost, at which instance I was dropped into the stream. The first thing I did on rising to the surface, was to swim for my hat, which had been pulled off as I sank under the water. Having secured it, I commenced swimming for the opposite shore. My clothing was heavy and grew more so as it became soaked with water, so that by the time I had attained the further shore—in the meantime watching constantly to see that no floating log bumped me, thereby rendering me unconscious—I was nearly exhausted.
"My three companions and I ... had gone to survey and estimate a tract of pine timber." (Page [150].)
During these years from 1871 to 1874, the woods of Wisconsin were thoroughly traveled over by land hunters, and nearly all of the desirable timber was entered at the respective land offices, so that there remained no further field for exploit. A new field was therefore looked for, and this I found in Minnesota.