“Same’s they brand horses out West,” Rex said. “What’s your mark?”
“All our logs are marked with a T,” Bob explained. “You see it has to be a mark that can be easily made with an axe.”
“About how fast are we going?” Rex asked, eager to learn all he could.
“Between two and three miles an hour, I should judge,” Bob replied.
“Don’t the water run faster than that?”
“Some,” Bob replied. “But you see there’s a lot of friction with the logs rubbing against each other and butting into the banks all the time and that slows them down so they never quite keep up with the water. I suppose a single log or two out in the middle would go as fast as the current, but a big lot together like these never do.”
“Look,” Jack cried at that moment. “Jean and Pierre are going to go ahead and get down beforehand.”
Rex looked as Jack pointed and saw the two men, one on each end, of what seemed to him a pretty small log to carry two heavy men, in the act of pushing the log ahead with their peaveys.
“Why, don’t they take a big one?” Rex asked.
“Because they can make a little one go faster,” Jack laughed.