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Moncrossen was beside himself. Up and down the bank he rushed, bellowing orders and hurling curses at the men who, gripping their peaveys, swarmed over the heaving jam like flies. The bateau men, forty of them, lifted the heavy boat bodily, and working it out to the very forefront of the jam, lowered it into the water, while other men made the heavy cable fast to the trunk of a tree.
These were in charge of expert boatmen, men able to propel their craft swiftly forwards, backwards and sideways, through all kinds of water. They carried in racks a great supply of pike-poles, peaveys, axes, rope and dynamite, for use in various emergencies. Intense rivalry existed as to which crew "sacked" the farthest down stream in the course of the day. There was no need to urge the men.
A cool and observant spectator might have imagined that the broad timber carpet was changing a little its pattern, just as the earth near the windows of an arrested railroad train seems for a moment to retrogress. The crew redoubled its exertions, clamping its peaveys here and there, apparently at random, but in reality with the most definite of purposes.
The little group bobbed away irregularly into the distance, springing lightly from one timber to the other, holding their quaintly-fashioned peaveys in the manner of a rope dancer's balancing pole. At the lowermost limit of the rollways, each man pried a log into the water, and, standing gracefully erect on this unstable craft, floated out down the current to the scene of his dangerous labor.
Occasionally he lent a shoulder when the peaveys lacked of prying a stubborn log from its bed. Not once did he glance at the nooning sun. His patience was quiet and sure.
With their short peaveys, the drivers were enabled to prevent the timbers from swirling in the eddies one of the first causes of a jam. At last, near the foot of the flats, they abandoned them to the stream, confident that Moloney and his crew would see to their passage down the river. In three days the rollways were broken. Now it became necessary to start the rear.
To all intents and purposes it was over. Calmly, with matter-of-fact directness, as though they had not achieved the impossible; as though they, a handful, had not cheated nature and powerful enemies, they shouldered their peaveys and struck into the broad wagon road. In the middle distance loomed the tall stacks of the mill with the little board town about it.
So all the gates of the dam were raised, and the torrent tried its hand. It had no effect. Evidently the affair was not one of violence, but of patience. The crew went doggedly to work. Day after day the CLANK, CLANK, CLINK of the peaveys sounded with the regularity of machinery.
There were some old-fashioned pick-poles, straight, heavy levers without any "dog," and there were modern pick-poles and peaveys, for every river has its favorite equipment in these things. There was no dynamite in those days to make the stubborn jams yield, and the dog-warp was in general use. Horses or oxen, sometimes a line of men, stood on the river-bank.
"There she goes!" he roared, and turning, slid hastily from the top and leaped into the waiting bateau. "Let 'er go!" he shouted. Fallon and Stromberg leaped forward and simultaneously their peaveys bit into the smaller of the two key-logs. Both big men heaved and strained, once, twice, thrice, and the log turned slowly, allowing the end of the other to pass.
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