Then when the last mast had scarcely cleared the opening, the ponderous turn-bridge began slowly to close. Its movement was almost imperceptible, but mighty beyond Bobby's small experience to gauge. He could make out the two bridge tenders walking around and around, pushing on the long lever that operated the mechanism. In a moment more the bridge came into alignment with a clang. The team, tossing their heads impatiently, moved forward.
On the other side of the bridge was no more town; but instead, great lumber yards, and along the river a string of mills with many smokestacks.
The road-bed at this point changed abruptly to sawdust, springy and odorous with the sweet new smell of pine that now perfumed all the air. To the left Bobby could see the shipyards and the skeleton of a vessel well under way. From it came the irregular Block! Block! Block! of mallets; and it swarmed with the little, black, ant-like figures of men.
Mr. Orde drove rapidly and silently between the shipyards and the rows and rows of lumber piles, arranged in streets and alleys like an untenanted city. Overhead ran tramways on which dwelt cars and great black and bay horses. The wild exultant shriek of the circular saw rang out. White plumes of steam shot up against the intense blue of the sky. Beyond the piles of lumber Bobby could make out the topmasts of more ships, from which floated the pointed hollow "tell-tales" affected by the lake schooners of those days as pennants. At the end of the lumber piles the road turned sharp to the right. It passed in turn the small building which Bobby knew to be another delightful office, and the huge cavernous mill with its shrieks and clangs, its blazing, winking eyes beneath and its long incline up which the dripping, sullen logs crept in unending procession to their final disposition. And then came the "booms" or pens, in which the logs floated like a patterned brown carpet. Men with pike poles were working there; and even at a distance Bobby caught the dip and rise, and the flash of white water as the rivermen ran here and there over the unstable footing.
Next were more lumber yards and more mills, for five miles or so, until at last they emerged into an open, flat country, divided by the old-fashioned snake fences; dotted with blackened stumps of the long-vanished forest; eaten by sloughs and bayous from the river. The sawdust ceased. Bobby leaned out to watch with fascinated interest the sand, divided by the tire, flowing back in a beautiful curved V to cover the wheel-rim.
As far as the eye could reach were marshes grown with wild rice and cat-tails. Occasionally one of these bayous would send an arm in to cross the road. Then Bobby was delighted, for that meant a float-bridge through the cracks of which the water spurted up in jets at each impact of the horses' hoofs. On either hand the bayou, but a plank's thickness below the level of the float-bridge, filmed with green weeds and the bright scum of water, not too stagnant, offered surprises to the watchful eye. One could see many mud-turtles floating lazily, feet outstretched in poise; and bullfrogs and little frogs; and, in the clear places, trim and self-sufficient mud hens. From the reeds at the edges flapped small green herons and thunder pumpers. And at last——
"Oh, look, papa!" cried Bobby excited and awed. "There's a snap'n' turtle!"
Indeed, there he was in plain sight, the boys' monster of the marshes, fully two feet in diameter, his rough shell streaming with long green grasses, his wicked black eyes staring, his hooked, powerful jaws set in a grim curve. If once those jaws clamped—so said the boys—nothing could loose them but the sound of thunder, not even cutting off the head.
Ten of the twelve miles to the booms had already been passed. The horses continued to step out freely, making nothing of the light fabric they drew after them. Duke, the white of his coat soiled and muddied by frequent and grateful plunges, loped alongside, his pink tongue hanging from one corner of his mouth, and a seraphic expression on his countenance. Occasionally he rolled his eyes up at his masters in sheer enjoyment of the expedition.
"Papa," asked Bobby suddenly, "what makes you have the booms so far away? Why don't you have them down by the bridge?"