“With dynamite, sometimes.”
“And der odder dimes?”
“With an ax.”
“Vale, I could use an ax.”
“The man who breaks a jam of logs with an ax stands about one chance in three of reaching the shore alive.”
“Py Chorch! I don’d toldt you dot!”
“And whole crews have been wiped out by the use of dynamite.”
“Vale, I don’d belief dot jam vill broke me!”
Forest spoke no more than the simple truth. Before dynamite was used, one man would go out on the front of a jam and cut the key log with an ax. The moment the log began to bend, the chopper made a dash for the shore. About once in three times he reached the shore unharmed, but the chances were against him. Many a good man has gone down under the logs, ground to a shapeless mass by the crashing timbers as they came piling over each other, some of them whirling end over end.
In later years, as a rule, five or six men go out on the jam and cut a big hole into the heart of the tumbled timbers. Then a cartridge is inserted, the fuse lighted, and a scramble for safety follows. Men who have heard the old “rebel yell” in war timers declare the foreman’s cry of “Shore! Shore!” when uttered under a jam of logs, is the most terrifying sound their ears have ever heard.