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The men, their heads whirling with the anticipated delights of a spree, would indignantly champion their new friend. Morgan retired grimly to the "office." There, the next morning, he silently made out the "time" of six men, who had decided to quit. He wondered what would become of the rollways. Silver Jack, for the sake of companionship, took one of the "jumpers" in the cutter with him.
Now Jimmy also knew the river from one end to the other, so he had arranged in his mind a sort of schedule for the twenty days. Forty-eight hours for the rollways; a day and a half to the upper rapids; three days into the dam pond; one day to sluice the drive through the Grand Rapids dam; three days for the Crossing; and so on.
The first, and smallest, comprised probably thirty millions. It started from the lowermost rollways on the river, drove rapidly through the more unobstructed reaches, and was early pocketed above Monrovia in the Company's distributing booms. The second and largest section of a hundred million came from the main river and its largest tributaries.
When I am through, Moncrossen, you won't be worth licking no ten-year-old boy will think it worth his while to step out of his way to slap your dirty face." With a hoarse bellow, Moncrossen launched himself at the speaker. And just at that moment swarming over the bank at the rollways came the men of the upper drive. The leaders paused, and sizing up the situation, came on at a run.
We didn't put up more'n a couple hundred thousand." "Is he breaking out his rollways below?" Orde asked Denning. "No, sir," struck in Charlie, "he ain't." "How do you happen to be so wise?" inquired Orde, "Seems to me you know about as much as old man Solomon." "Well," explained Charlie, "you see it's like this.
As a consequence the teamsters had often to wait two, three hours to be unloaded. They were out until long after dark, feeling their way homeward through hunger and cold. Dick Darrell, walking boss of all the camps, did the best he could. He sent message after message to Beeson Lake demanding more men. If the rollways could be definitely cleared once, the work would lighten all along the line.
Thus some of the logs, a very few, the luckiest, drifted into the dam pond at Grand Rapids within a few days; the bulk jammed and broke and jammed again at a point a few miles below the rollways, while a large proportion stranded, plugged, caught, and tangled at the very rollways themselves. Jimmy had permitted himself two days in which to "break out" the rollways. It was done in two.
A mile farther down they swept around a wide bend, and before them loomed the cleared rollways of Moncrossen's camp, and on top of the slope, for all the world like fortifications commanding the river, were pile after pile of pyramided logs. The little flat boat was rapidly approaching, and men could be seen swarming about the rollways.
The seven or eight million feet of lumber comprised in Carlin's drive would keep the men below busy until the other owners, farther down and up the tributaries, should also have put their season's cut afloat. The ice went out early, to Orde's satisfaction. As soon as the river ran clear in its lower reaches he took his rear crew in to Carlin's rollways.
Maybe another year, after we get better organised, we'll be able to break rollways at a price per thousand but until we get a-going we'll have to rush her through." Orde repeated this to his associate. "That was smooth enough sailing," he exulted. "Yes," pondered Newmark, removing his glasses and tapping his thumb with their edge. "Yes," he repeated, "that was smooth sailing.
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