The Timber Treasure

by Frank Lillie Pollock

What could “D W” stand for? The name of Daniel Wilson floated into his mind, but for a moment the name conveyed nothing to him, and he did not know where he had heard it. And then he remembered.

It was the Daniel Wilson Lumber Company that had cut the black walnut raft that had been lost on the lake, as the story said.

It struck Tom like an electric flash. He jumped out of the canoe, almost trembling, weariness and hunger forgotten. There were perhaps a hundred logs in sight, on the surface or almost covered by sand and mud, and “D W” was cut on the ends of all of them.

They were blackened by the fire and smoke, but not charred. Between black of fire and the wearing of age it was impossible to make out the kind of wood, but Tom whipped out his knife. Chipping off the outer skin, he saw the unmistakable rich, dark, hard grain. It was walnut. He had discovered the lost raft—or part of it, at all events.

Here it must have sunk in the shallow water near the shore where it had been driven that stormy night twenty-eight years ago. This point had formed part of the lake bottom then. Later the water had receded; the narrows had been formed. A crop of evergreens springing up quickly had concealed the visible part of the scattered raft from the few men who ever passed that way. It might have lain there forever if the fire had not laid it bare.

Tom tried to remember all he had heard of the loss of the raft. Walnut had never been a plentiful timber in that part of the country; but the Wilson Lumber Company, of which Wilson himself was sole owner, had discovered and cut a small tract of it—five or six hundred thousand feet, report said. At that time nobody regarded black walnut as extremely valuable. A market was lacking, and the rich timber was used for firewood and fence-rails, but Wilson had got a government contract for wood for gun-stocks for the army.

The timber was brought out to the head of Coboconk Lake and the raft built there, to be floated down to Oakley, where at that time there was a sawmill and nothing else. But the start of the raft was, for some unknown reason, delayed till too late in the autumn. It was November when it was finally put together, with plenty of pine logs to keep it afloat, and launched down the lake. There is a gentle drift from north to south, and the lumbermen helped with huge sweeps.

When they were half-way down the lake a strong northwest wind sprang up; it turned cold and began to snow. It was then late in the afternoon. The wind continued to rise, and toward midnight the huge raft began to go to pieces. The men aboard had to take to their bateaux and row ashore in a howling storm of wind and snow.

A blinding blizzard blew all the next day, and when it cleared there was nothing to be seen of the raft. A search of the shore revealed a good deal of the pine framework, but all the walnut timber was finally judged to have broken loose and gone to the bottom.

That storm marked the opening of a very early winter. In another day the lake was freezing over. Nothing more could be done, and in the spring no trace could be found of the lost raft. But the story became a local tradition, and for years spasmodic efforts were made to locate it, but never with any success. The lumbermen were by no means sure just where the raft had been when it broke up in that dark night; the lake is large, and it had generally come to be believed that the timber must be sunk too deep in the mud to be recovered.