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Updated: June 24, 2025
A score of river-drivers were marching down through the village, mocking the fishers and making wild mirth. The Indians took little notice, but the half-breeds and white fishers were restless. "There will be trouble here one day," said Mrs. Falchion. "A free fight which will clear the air," I said.
When the lights were up again the room was empty, save for Theophile Charlemagne, Jake Hough, and Suzon, who lay in a faint on the floor with a nasty bruise on her forehead. A score of river-drivers were scattering into the country-side, and somewhere in the black river, alive or dead, was Charley Steele.
The child was born before the river-drivers came along again the next year with their rafts and logs. There was a feeling abroad that it would be ill for Dugard if he chanced to camp at Bamber's Boom. The look of the old man's face was ominous, and he was known to have an iron will. Dugard was a handsome man, half French, half Scotch, swarthy and admirably made.
His gang of river-drivers, with their big drives of logs, came sweeping down one beautiful day of early summer, red-shifted, shouting, good- tempered. It was about this time that Pierre came to know Magor. It was the old man's duty to keep the booms of several great lumbering companies, and to watch the logs when the river-drivers were engaged elsewhere.
The situation was trying to the river-drivers it was too refined; and they breathed more freely when they got outside and left the girl, her grandfather, Pierre, and the young doctor alone with the injured man. That was how the thing began. Pierre saw the conclusion of events from the start. The young doctor did not.
A word or two assured me of all I wished to know. We reached the scene of the disorder. The fishermen were bunched together, the river on the one side, the houses and hills on the other. The river-drivers had halted not many yards away, cool, determined and quiet, save for a little muttering.
From this topic he proceeded genially to narrate the life-histories of the boss, the under boss, and several Indians belonging to the crew, histories in which he himself played a gallant and conspicuous part. The conversation then drifted naturally to the exploits of river-drivers in general, and Mr.
I landed on the island and watched with great interest the men as they pried, twisted and tumbled the pile to get at the key-log which, found and loosened, would send the heap into the water. I was sorry I brought the Indian with me, for though the river-drivers stopped their wild sing-song cry for a moment to call a "How!" at me, they presently began to toss jeering words at the Indian.
To the north were booms of logs, swilling in the current, waiting for their devourer. Here and there were groups of river-drivers and their foremen, prying twisted heaps of logs from the rocks or the shore into the water.
There seemed no leader to the fishermen. My friend said to me quickly: "You speak first." Instantly I stepped forward and demanded to know what the terms of peace were. As soon as I did so, there were harsh mutterings among the river-drivers.
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