“Sluice through everything but the “H” logs,” he commanded. “Work them off to the left and leave them.”
Twilight, then dark, fell. After a few moments the moon, then just past its full, rose behind the new-budding trees. The sluicing, under the impetus of a big crew, went rapidly.
“I bet there's mighty near a million an hour going through there,” speculated Orde, watching the smooth, swift, but burdened waters of the chute.
And in this work the men distinguished easily the new white blaze-marks on Heinzman's logs; so they were able without hesitation to shunt them one side into the smoother water, as Orde had commanded.
About two o'clock the last log shot through.
“Now, boys,” said Orde, “tear out the booms.”
The chute to the dam was approached, as has been earlier explained, by two rows of booms arranged in a V, or funnel, the apex of which emptied into the sluice-way, and the wide, projecting arms of which embraced the width of the stream. The logs, floating down the pond, were thus concentrated toward the sluice. Also, the rivermen, walking back and forth the length of the booms, were able easily to keep the drive moving.
Now, however, Orde unchained these boom logs. The men pushed them ashore. There as many as could find room on either side the boom-poles clamped in their peavies, and, using these implements as handles, carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybody tramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde was like a mischievous boy at a school prank. When the last timber had been concealed, he lifted up his deep voice in a roar of joy, in which the crew joined.
“Now let's turn in for a little sleep,” said be.
This situation, perhaps a little cloudy in the reader's mind, would have cleared could he have looked out over the dam pond the following morning. The blazed logs belonging to Heinzman, drifting slowly, had sucked down into the corner toward the power canal where, caught against the grating, they had jammed. These logs would have to be floated singly, and pushed one by one against the current across the pond and into the influence of the sluice-gate. Some of them would be hard to come at.