That afternoon Dale took a walk up to the flume. This was nothing more than a high trestle built of rough timber. At the top was a water-tight, V-shaped trough, sloping gradually from the top of one hill to the bottom of another, about a mile away. The sides of the trough were built of boards smoothed on the inner side, so that nothing might catch fast on them. When in use this flume would be almost filled with water, and any lumber floated in at the upper end would readily be carried to the lower.
"This is a small flume alongside of some," said the foreman in charge of the work. "Some of the camps have flumes five and ten miles long, and there is a flume in California about sixty miles long, running from the top of the Sierras, where there is nothing but ice and snow, to the valleys where it is summer nearly all the year around."
"It will be a great saving of money when they can float lumber from all parts of this camp right down to the Columbia," said Dale. "But there is a good deal to do before that happens."
"Well, we are rushing things all we can. Mr. Wilbur wanted us to wait with this flume until next year, but Mr. Balasco said to go ahead at once."
"Do you know Mr. Wilbur personally?"
"Yes, I've seen him two or three times—when I was in the East. He's a fine man. I wish he was out here now. He's a hustler."
"You are right there. I never saw him but that he was on the go," answered Dale, with a laugh. "I believe he hardly gives himself time to eat sometimes. He is chock-full of business."
"He came into this lumber company on the jump, and I doubt if he knows exactly what is doing here—he has so many other irons in the fire. I believe if he was up here he'd make some changes. I say this to you because I've heard that you know him pretty well," added the foreman, with a sharp look at Dale.
"I don't know him so very well, Mr. Gladstone. But he takes an interest in me and Owen Webb, because we once did him a couple of good turns while we were out in Maine at a lumber camp there."
"I see. Well, you stick to him, and he'll treat you well, mark my words," concluded Gladstone, as he turned away to give directions about the erection of additional timbers along the flume trestle.