“Watch out below!” he shouted and signed to Festing. “All clear! You can start her off.”
Festing seized a handspike and the skids groaned as the big log began to move. The men helped and sprang back as it gathered speed. Water flew up, the bark tore off in crumpled flakes, and the wet timber smoked. The other logs were smaller and easier launched, but they did not gain the momentum of the first, which plunged furiously down hill and flung up its thin end as it leaped over the edge of the dip.
“She's surely hitting up the pace,” one of the men remarked.
“The mud is greasing the skids,” said Festing, who began to run down the incline when the man below shouted.
Two of the others followed, but stopped at the top of the last pitch, which ended in the bank of gravel close above the track. The logs, spread out at intervals, rushed down, rising and falling on the uneven skids. Showers of mud and water marked their progress; there was a crash as a smashed skid was flung into the air, and a roar when the leading mass plowed through fallen gravel. Stones shot out and Festing saw smoke and sparks, but the logs rushed on, and he wondered anxiously whether the bank would stop them. So far, it had served its purpose, but he was doubtful about it now, and hoped there was nobody on the track beneath.
The big log reached the bank and ran half way up the short incline before its speed slackened much. Festing held his breath as he watched, for some gravel cars had come down the track, and he could not tell where they were. The log was going slower, but he doubted if it would stop.
It plowed on through the gravel, which shot up all round, and then the end of the bank seemed to fall away. There was a shower of stones; the butt of the log went down and its after end tilted up. Then it lurched out of sight and there was a heavy crash below. After this Festing heard a confused din, and imagined, though he could not see, the mass of timber plunging down the precipitous slope, smashing rocks and scattering gravel as it went. The noise stopped, he heard a splash, and as the following logs leaped the broken bank, the first shot half its length out of water, and falling again, drove down stream.
The rope at the island caught it while a trolley ran down, but the straining wire curved and parted, and the trolley fell into the river as the log swept on. The others followed and vanished in a turmoil of muddy foam, and Festing went down to the track. Things might have been worse, for nobody was hurt, although some yards of road-bed had been carried away and a derrick he had built to put the logs on the cars was smashed. As he studied the damage a wet and angry engineer ran up.
“You have got to stop your blamed logs jumping down like that! They've broken a steel rope and there's a new trolley-skip in the river!”
“I'm sorry,” Festing answered. “I'll try to get the skip out as soon as possible, and you can trust me to stop more logs getting away, for my own sake.”