After the trees are sawed down by men engaged especially for this duty, they are sawed into log lengths and hauled, perhaps several miles, to the bank of the river. Some of the camps contain as many as 300 or 400 men, and this force is kept busy during the entire winter cutting down trees, sawing them into logs, and hauling them to the river. Here they are placed in huge piles, and it is at this time that the log-mark of the owner is placed upon them by an individual known as the "scaler," whose duty it also is to measure the diameter of each log and keep a record of it.
In this article we show a few of these curious log-marks—odd artistic inventions of the untrained minds of the lumber-camps. There is no attempt at uniformity in ideas. Anything that has the least bit of distinctiveness about it is sufficient for the purpose, which explains the presence of pound-marks, tea-pots, frogs, babies, yokes, division signs, and wheel-barrows in the illustrations for this article.
The instrument with which the "scaler" places the mark upon a log is in the shape of a sledge-hammer, the back of the hammer portion having upon it a device similar to the log-mark of the man by whom he is employed and to whom the logs belong. The log-mark itself is raised to a height of about 1½in. or 2in. above the surrounding surface of steel, and when the sawed end of a log is struck with it, the mark of the owner is punched into the end of the log to a depth which prevents its obliteration, unless the whole end of the log is sawed off and removed. Crude designs, differing from the regular log-mark, are sometimes cut into the bark of the log to assist in more readily identifying the owner. Copies of log-marks and cattle-brands are, as provided by law, placed on a file in the office of the county recorder of deeds in the county in which the cattle owner or lumberman operates.
For greater convenience the ice in the river is thickly covered with the logs as spring approaches. When the break-up of ice in the river occurs, and the stream is swollen by the melting of snow and the early spring rains, what is called the log "drive" commences. In some portions of the lumbering regions the disappearance of the forests has left the saw-mills further and further from the product without which they cannot operate, and the logs have to be floated great distances. Thus, a "drive" of 100 or 200 miles is nothing unusual, and on the Mississippi river logs are frequently taken as much as 300 miles.
On one river perhaps a dozen or more lumbering firms, having no connection with each other, are operating, and when spring comes all their logs are rolled into the stream, to soon become so mixed up that the novice naturally becomes of the opinion that their separation is an impossibility. The work during a log "drive" is the hardest and most dangerous connected with the lumbering industry.
The men are required to be up long before daylight, so that they may eat their breakfasts and walk to the river, perhaps several miles distant, arriving there at daylight to begin the work of the day. Refreshments are taken to them twice during the day, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, and again at two o'clock in the afternoon. They work until it becomes dark, when they walk back to their camps to procure their suppers and much-needed rest. The log drivers are required to keep the logs floating in the streams. In rainy or cold weather, such as is frequently experienced in the lumbering regions, their work is very arduous and debilitating. It is of the utmost importance that the work of floating the logs out be pushed while there is sufficient water in the streams, many of which become nothing more than creeks later in the season, when dry weather sets in.
The force of the current behind the huge mass of logs may force hundreds of logs to a lodgment on the bank when curves in the stream are reached, and then the men are compelled to work, perhaps waist deep, in the water in order to clear the stranded logs and once more get them afloat. The foremost logs are especially looked after and kept on the move, for should they become lodged the obstruction thus formed would speedily cause a log "jam," the thing particularly to be dreaded by the drivers.