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They extended over three miles of rollways. Jimmy and his crew began at the down-stream end to tumble the big piles into the current. Sometimes only two or three logs would rattle down; at others the whole deck would bulge outward, hover for a moment, and roar into the stream like grain from an elevator. Shortly the narrows below the rollways jammed. Twelve men were detailed as the jam crew.
The river, refreshed after its long winter, bent its mighty back to the great annual burden laid upon it. By the end of the second day the logs actually in the bed of the stream had been shaken loose, and a large proportion of them had floated entirely from sight. It now became necessary to break down the rollways piled along the tops of the banks.
And so the routine of the camp went on until well into February. The clearing widened, the timber line receded, and tier upon tier of logs was pyramided upon the rollways. As yet Bill had made no progress formulated no definite plan for the detection and ultimate exposure of the gang of bird's-eye thieves. Occasionally men put up at the camp for a short stay.
The new partners, as soon as Orde had released himself from Daly, gave all their time to working out a schedule of tolls. Orde drew on his intimate knowledge of the river and its tributaries, and the locations of the different rollways, to estimate as closely as possible the time it would take to drive them.
Immediately above the first rollways was Dam Three with its two wide sluices through which a veritable flood could be loosened at will; then four miles farther lay the rollways of Sadler & Smith, the up-river firm; and above them tumbled over a forty-five foot ledge the beautiful Siscoe Falls; these first rollways of Thorpe's spread in the broad marsh flat below the dam contained about eight millions; the rest of the season's cut was scattered for thirty miles along the bed of the river.
Even old man Reed held to his chastened attitude, and made no trouble. In fact, he seemed glad to turn an honest penny by boarding the small crew in charge of sluicing the logs. No trouble was experienced until Heinzman's rollways were reached. Here Orde had, as he had promised his partner, boomed a free channel to prevent Heinzman from filling up the entire river-bed with his rollways.
He did not know whether it was near or far, he only knew that he was upon the river, and that he must push on and on. He realized dully that he might easily have passed the rollways hours ago. He even considered doubling back; but what was the use? If he passed them once, he would pass them again. Every drop of his fighting blood was up. He would push on to the end.
When Daly had quite finished his remarks, Jimmy got up and went out without a word. Two days later he and sixty men were breaking rollways forty-five miles up-stream. Jimmy knew as well as Daly that the latter had given him a hard task. Twenty days was too brief a time. However, that was none of his business. The logs, during the winter, had been piled in the bed of the stream.
The girl laughed happily and passed on with a great love in her heart for Daddy Dunnigan and the big, rough men out in the timber who were "tearing out the bone" that her man might make good. Day by day the black pyramids of the rollways lengthened, and the skidways were pushed farther and farther into the timber.
"Kerlie," went on Thorpe, "your crew can break rollways with the rest until we get the river fairly filled, and then you can move on down stream as fast as you are needed. Scotty, you will have the rear. Tim and I will boss the river." At once the signal was given to Ellis, the dam watcher. Ellis and his assistants thereupon began to pry with long iron bars at the ratchets of the heavy gates.
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