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Updated: June 11, 2025
Yet men fight for a place on the drive for the privilege of being soaked to the bone for days at a time in ice-cold water; of being crushed to a pulp between grinding logs; of being drowned in white-water rapids, where a man must stand, his log moving at the speed of an express train, time and again shooting half out of water to meet the spray of the next rock-tossed wave; of making hair-trigger decisions, when an instant's hesitation means death, as his log rushes under the low-hanging branches of a "sweeper."
"That's right," said Orde. In a tone of vast astonishment, the Rough Red mentioned his probable deserts in the future life. "Luk here, Jack," said he after a moment, "here's a crew of white-water birlers that ye can't beat nowheres. What do you want us to do? We're now gettin' four dollars a day AN' board from that murderin' ould villain, Heinzman, SO WE CAN AFFORD TO WURRK FOR YOU CHEAP."
There formed none of the tremendous white-water jams that pile up several million feet of logs, tax every resource of men, horses, and explosives, and require a week or so to break. No men were killed, and only two injured. No unexpected floods swept away works on which the drive depended. The water held out to carry the last stick of timber over the shallowest rapids.
They aren't the sort of men that go to make up the general run of construction squads. One of my main reasons for wanting them was the fact that they were rivermen, hardened to swamping and white-water work and that kind of thing. In a pinch they're good for twenty-four hours a day, over stretches that would take the heart out of most gangs.
The operation was not new to her; a dozen times within the month since the outfit had swung out from Athabasca Landing she had watched from the muddy bank while the half-breeds and Indians unloaded the big scows, ran them light through whirling rock-ribbed rapids, carried the innumerable pieces of freight upon their shoulders across portages made all but impassable by scrub timber, oozy muskeg, and low sand-mountains, loaded the scows again at the foot of the rapid and steered them through devious and dangerous miles of swift-moving white-water, to the head of the next rapid.
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