Hurley banged the peavy down upon the wooden floor. "An' ut's proud Oi'll be to be sthandin' be yer soide whin them logs rolls in. Ut's as ye say, best to let th' law deal with Slue Foot. Yez nade have no fear—from now on 'til John Grey sets fut in th' clearin'—fer all an-ny wan w'd know, me an' Slue Foot could be brother-in-laws."
[CHAPTER XX]
CONNIE DELIVERS HIS LOGS
THE following days were busy ones in the two camps in Dogfish. Connie worked day and night to catch up on his books, and while Saginaw superintended the building of the huge bateau, and the smoothing out of the rollways, Hurley and Slue Foot kept the rest of the crew at work hauling logs to the landings. Spring came on with a rush, and the fast softening snow made it necessary for the hauling to be done at night. The thud of axes, the whine of saws, and the long crash of falling trees, was heard no more in the camps, while all night long the woods resounded to the calls of teamsters and swampers, as huge loads of logs were added to the millions of feet already on the rollways.
Then came a night when the thermometer failed to drop to the freezing point. The sky hung heavy with a thick grey blanket of clouds, a steady drenching rain set in, and the loggers knew that so far as the woods were concerned, their work was done. Only a few logs remained to be hauled, and Hurley ordered these peeled and snaked to the skidways to await the next season.
The men sang and danced in the bunkhouse that night to the wheeze of an accordion and the screech of an old fiddle. They crowded the few belongings which they would take out of the woods with them into ridiculously small compass, and talked joyfully and boisterously of the drive—for, of all the work of the woods it is the drive men most love. And of all work men find to do, the log drive on a swollen, quick-water river is the most dangerous, the most gruelling, and the most torturing, when for days and nights on end, following along rough shores, fighting underbrush, rocks, and backwater, clothing half torn from their bodies, and the remnants that remain wet to their skin, sleeping in cat-naps upon the wet ground, eating out of their hands as they follow the logs, cheating death by a hair as they leap from log to log, or swarm out to break a jam—of all work, the most gruelling, yet of all work the most loved by the white-water birlers of the north.
Next morning water was flowing on top of the ice on Dogfish, and the big bateau was man-hauled to the bank and loaded with supplies and a portable stove. Strong lines were loaded into her, and extra axes, pickpoles, and peavys, and then, holding themselves ready to man the river at a moment's notice, the crew waited.
And that morning, also appeared John Grey, worn out and wet to the middle by his all night's battle with the deep, saturated slush of the tote road. He had started from Dogfish with a horse and a side-bar buggy, but after a few miles, he had given up the attempt to drive through, and had unharnessed the horse and turned it loose to find its way back, while he pushed on on foot. After a prodigious meal, the sheriff turned in and slept until noon. When he awoke, his eyes rested for a moment on Connie, and he turned to Hurley: "Quite some of a clerk you got holt of, this season, Jake," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.