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Updated: May 27, 2025
They set out up the long reach of Water Street, their steel caulks biting deep into the pitted board-walks. For nearly a mile the street was flanked solely by lumber-yards, small mills, and factories. Then came a strip of unimproved land, followed immediately by the wooden, ramshackle structures of Hell's Half-Mile.
There was nothing the matter with the director's plans on this occasion; every detail of the "freshet" had been made ready for with exactness and with prodigious regard to detail. The foreman had cut the key log almost through and the force of the water and débris behind the boom had broken it. The man barely escaped disaster by reason of agile legs and sharp caulks on his boots.
In all details of equipment he was a riverman complete: the narrow-brimmed black felt hat, pushed back from a tangle of curls; the flannel shirt crossed by the broad bands of the suspenders; the kersey trousers "stagged" off a little below the knee; the heavy knit socks; and the strong shoes armed with thin half-inch, needle-sharp caulks.
The sharp caulks of the rivermen's shoes had long since picked away the surface, leaving it pockmarked and uneven. Only the knots had resisted; and each of these now constituted a little hill above the surrounding plains, Bobby always wished that either his tin soldiers could be here or this well-ordered porch could be at home. The sun proving hot, he peeped within the cook-house.
"Seems to be," agreed the young man drily. "Well, I reckon we'll just have to worry along without him," remarked Orde, striking his steel caulks into the first log and preparing to cross out into the river where the work was going on. "Wait a minute," said the young fellow. "Have you any objections to my hanging around a little to watch the work? My name is Newmark Joseph Newmark.
Turning, he perceived Charlie, covered with mud, in the act of clambering up one of the small trestles. "Ain't got no caulks!" ran the lamentations. "The of a of a pole-trail, anyways!"
These boots were armed on the soles with rows of formidable sharp spikes or caulks, a half and sometimes even three quarters of an inch in length. The tight driver's shoe and "stagged" trousers had not then come into use. From the waist down these men wore all alike, as though in a uniform, the outward symbol of their calling. From the waist up was more latitude of personal taste.
When she turned to face the turbulent stream the rocking timbers coming down with the released water almost filled the pool before the endangered girl. Had she worn caulks on the soles of her boots, as did the foreman who had cut the boom, and been practised as he was in "running the logs," Ruth would have stood a better chance of escaping the plunging avalanche.
Shearer wore caulks nearly an inch in length. He had been known to ride ten miles, without shifting his feet, on a log so small that he could carry it without difficulty. For cool nerve he was unexcelled. "I don't need you boys here any longer," he said quietly.
The dark flanks of the log heaved dripping from the river, and rolled silently back again, picked by the long sharp caulks of the riverman's boots. "Can you walk on the logs?" asked Bobby of his companion. "Sure," laughed Jimmy Powers. "Let's see you," insisted Bobby. Jimmy Powers leaped lightly from the boom to the nearest log. It was a small one, and at once dipped below the surface.
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