The opportunity for securing a good price for this otherwise useless timber, as well as his confidence in Mr. Thompson, urged the lumberman to give bond for him that the required number and lengths of piling would be deposited upon the banks of the river in time for the spring drive.
By offering the extra high wages, which a successful completion of his contract would enable him to do, Mr. Thompson picked up a crew among the settlers along the river. Among them was Ed Allen, who, hardy and strong for his age, was well able to fulfill the duties of “swamper.”
As the contract would call but for one winter’s work, the camp houses were not so elaborate and substantial as those of the big woods further north, yet they were made fairly comfortable. After the cabins were up, the first thing was to lay out the main logging road from the tract of timber to the river. While the road must be as direct as possible, it was necessary that the route selected keep to level ground. There could be no going up hill and down dale with the great stack-like loads which would pass over it.
By the time the hollows were filled, the trees cut away, and their stumps dug out, and even the small brush cut, so that a clear, level track extended all the way to the river, the foreman had selected a number of trees of the required length and diameter, and marked them with a “blaze” on the side.
Sites were chosen for the skidways upon little knolls, where the logs would be rolled up in great piles, to be loaded upon the sleds.
And the chopping began.
The success or failure of a lumberman in the northern woods depended as much upon the weather conditions, as does the success or failure of the farmer. Long-continued and severe storms may shut in the crew for a week of precious time. Great snows may double the labor of swamping, skidding, and loading. But more to be dreaded by the loggers is a winter thaw. A mild winter, when the snow melts in the middle of the day, is, to the logger, as a rainless summer to the husbandman.
With this contract it was not a matter of how many of the logs might be hauled to the river, but a question whether the whole number was delivered. So every hour would count; every advantage of the peculiarities of the weather must be taken, both in felling the trees and in hauling.
It seemed to Ed that he would barely stretch himself in his bunk at night before he would hear the foreman’s “All out” in the morning, and with the others he would hasten into his mackinaws and felt boots, his sleep-heavy eyes hardly open before their plunge into the icy water, as the cry “Chuck’s ready” would be heard from the cook.
As soon as one could “see to swing an axe” the crew would be in the timber tract, ready for the strenuous labor of the day. What matter if the mercury would register zero, and the snow lay knee deep on the level? did not their pulses bound with the rich wine of life? was not the very air a tonic? and the hard work filled with the joy of achievement?