“That’s ol’ Hand. He’s a bad egg. I s’pose I’d ought to fire him, but he’s a good logger, and they are mighty scarce ’round these diggin’s.” He yawned sleepily. “Got to fix a ‘spar-tree’ for a ‘high-lead’ to-morrow, so I better hit the hay.”
Preparing the “spar-tree” for “high-lead,” or “sky-line” rigging, is the most spectacular and thrilling performance in the logging industry. A standing tree is trimmed of top and branches, then strengthened with guys. With the pull coming from this altitude, the advantage over the straight ground pull is enormous as logs are lifted high in air over all impedimenta. The men who do this hazardous work are known as “high-riggers.”
Next morning, a man with a short-handled axe, wearing a wide belt to pass around the treetrunk, and a pair of lineman’s spurs, slowly climbed a big fir. As he ascended he trimmed the trunk clear of limbs. Quite a crowd gathered, among them the trapper, with his rifle on his arm.
“I ain’t got a ‘high-rigger’ in the outfit,” growled Gillis. “This feller agreed to trim her, but he says he never chopped the top off one, so I guess we’ll dynamite her.”
The explosive, with a detonating cap, was tied around the top of the tree and wires strung to the ground. For some reason the batteries would not act, and Gillis chafed under the delay.
“I kin set her off for ye,” said the old trapper.
Gillis turned to him. “How?”
The trapper tapped his gun. “Put a piece of paper on the cap so’ I kin see her and I’ll pop it.”
“That’s a new one on me,” laughed Gillis.
He sent the man aloft to place a square piece of pasteboard on the cap. The men moved back from the foot of the tree, and Gillis gave the signal that all was clear. The old man sprang briskly to the top of a stump, tipped his big hat to the back of his head, and raised his rifle slowly. For an instant the long barrel wavered slightly, then steadied. The report of the rifle was drowned by a splintering crash. The heavily-branched top lifted, then came hurtling through the air to strike the ground a mass of wreckage. For a moment the big spar swayed drunkenly from the shock, then stood stark and rigid. Deprived of its fronds of green, it appeared a ghastly relic of its former self.