The Boss of Wind River

by A. M. Chisholm

The main drive did not halt at all. The river was crowded with logs, and they were fed through the huge water-gates of the slides as fast and as thick as they would run. It was beautiful, clean, uninterrupted work, and when the last stick had shot through Joe bade Jack good-bye and followed.

Now, at last, the drive was on the homestretch with a few days to spare—a narrow margin, but still a margin. It was then the fifteenth of June, and the river was at its best. Taking into consideration the high water and consequently more rapid current, Joe hoped to reach Burritt’s Rapids by the twenty-third. That would give one week from that point to Wismer & Holden’s mills, a distance of thirty-five miles. Below Burritt’s Rapids, however, was Thirty Mile Lake, a shallow, almost currentless expansion of the river, some thirty miles long and varying in width from half a mile to two miles, through which the drive would have to be towed by steamers owned by a river improvement company, who also owned the booms above the rapids. The time occupied by towing would depend on the weather. Therefore, although the probabilities were in Joe’s favour there was always a doubt. He must remain on the anxious seat till the actual event.

Because of the good water the drive made Burritt’s on the twenty-second instead of the twenty-third. They made it in a heavy downriver gale with an accompaniment of slashing rain that soaked every one to the skin.

Because a drive turned down the rapids would simply float all over the lake and have to be gathered up again, a task involving much time and trouble, the logs were always put through a narrow, inner channel protected by cribwork and booms, and caught in other booms below. There steamers took them in tow and turned them loose down other rapids at the foot of the lake, which were about three miles above Wismer & Holden’s booms. Accordingly, when they made Burritt’s with some daylight to spare the dripping crew ran the drive into the booms and started to feed down the inner channel. When darkness fell they winched a boom across the narrow mouth and quit.

The ground was wet, the tents were wet, and so were the blankets. Although it was June the wind was raw and cutting. The rain slashed and sputtered at the fires. Clothes hung before them steamed, but accumulated moisture faster than they dried. Altogether it was miserable, and the rivermen cursed the weather heartily. They squatted on the sodden ground beneath canvas that let through fine spray with every gust, and big teardrops which had an aggravating habit of landing on the back of the neck, and juggled tin plates piled with pork and beans on their knees, wiping them up with huge wedges of bread.

“A curse of a night,” grumbled Haggarty, shifting away from a drop which threatened to become a stream. “Black as a cord of black cats, an’ rainin’ fit to flood hell! An’ not a dry stitch to me back, an’ the blanket’s soaked, an’ all. Fill up me plate again, you, cookee, an’ slap a dose of molasses on her. Praise be, me hide is waterproof an’ the inside of me’s dry.”

“An’ that’s more nor mine will be this day week,” said big Cooley, licking his lips in pure anticipation. “A hard winter, an’ a long drive. The throat of me aches for the rasp of a drink of the good stuff!”

“For sure, for sure,” Chartrand agreed with him. “I’ll be dry, me, lak one sap maple in August. When dat drive is finish’, by dam’ I stay dronk for one mont’. Hooray!”

“An’ you see me so,” Cooley promised. “I’ll find that McCane an’ put the boots till him till he can’t crawl. A dirty dog! An’ Tom Archer is no better—no, nor his bosses.”

In another tent Joe and his foremen ate supper and listened to the rain, the wind, the roar of the rapids, and the swirl of the current as it talked against the booms. MacNutt went out and came back dripping.