"Obey orders if you break owners" is a good rule, but a reallyefficient river-boss knows a better. It runs, "Get the logs out.Get them out peaceably if you can, but get them out." Hedoes not need a field-telephone to headquarters to teach him how tolive up to the spirit of this rule. That might involveheadquarters. Jimmy was such a river-boss. Therefore when Mr. Daly, of thefirm of Morrison & Daly, unexpectedly contracted to deliverfive million feet of logs on a certain date, and the logs animpossible number of miles up river, he called in Jimmy. Jimmy was a small man, changeless as the Egyptian sphinx. Anumber of years ago a French comic journal published a series ofsketches supposed to represent the Shah of Persia influenced byvarious emotions. Under each was an appropriate caption, such asSurprise, Grief, Anger, or Astonishment. The portraits wereidentically alike, and uniformly impassive. Well, that was Jimmy. He looked always the same. His hair, thickand black, grew low on his forehead; his beard, thick and black,mounted over the ridge of his cheek-bones; and his eyebrows, thickand black, extended in an uninterrupted straight line from onetemple to the other. Whatever his small, compact, muscular bodymight be doing, the mask of his black and white imperturbabilityremained always unchanged. Generally he sat clasping one knee,staring directly in front of him, and puffing regularly on a"meerschaum" pipe he had earned by saving the tags of Spearheadtobacco. Whatever you said to him sank without splash into thisalmost primal calm and was lost to your view forever. Perhaps aftera time he might do something about it, but always withoutexplanation, calmly, with the lofty inevitability of fate. In fact,he never explained himself, even to his employers. Daly swung his bulk back and forth in the office chair. Jimmysat bolt upright, his black hat pendant between his knees. "I want you to take charge of the driving crew, Jimmy," said thebig man; "I want you to drive those logs down to our booms as fastas you can. I give you about twenty days. It ought to be done inthat. Sanders will keep time for you, and Merrill will cook. Youcan get a pretty good crew from the East Branch, where the drive isjust over." When Daly had quite finished his remarks, Jimmy got up and wentout without a word. Two days later he and sixty men were breakingrollways forty-five miles up-stream. Jimmy knew as well as Daly that the latter had given him a hardtask. Twenty days was too brief a time. However, that was none ofhis business. The logs, during the winter, had been piled in the bed of thestream. They extended over three miles of rollways. Jimmy and hiscrew began at the down-stream end to tumble the big piles into thecurrent. Sometimes only two or three logs would rattle down; atothers the whole deck would bulge outward, hover for a moment, androar into the stream like grain from an elevator. Shortly thenarrows below the rollways jammed. Twelve men were detailed as thejam crew. Their business was to keep the stream free in order thatthe constantly increasing supply from the rollways might not fillup the river. It was not an easy business, nor a very safe. As the"jam"
strung out over more and more of the river, the jam crew wasconstantly recruited from the men on the rollways. Thus some of thelogs, a very few, the luckiest, drifted into the dam pond at GrandRapids within a few days; the bulk jammed and broke and jammedagain at a point a few miles below the rollways, while a largeproportion stranded, plugged, caught, and tangled at the veryrollways themselves. Jimmy had permitted himself two days in which to "break out" therollways. It was done in two. Then the "rear" was started. Men inthe rear crew had to see that every last log got into the current.When a jam broke, the middle of it shot down-stream in a mostspectacular fashion, but along the banks "winged out" mostdistressingly. Sometimes the heavy sticks of timber had been forcedright out on the dry land. The rear crew lifted them back. When anobstinate log grounded, they jumped cheerfully into the water--withthe rotten ice swirling around them--and pried the thing offbottom. Between times they stood upright on single, unstable logsand pushed mightily with poles, while the ice-water sucked in andout of their spiked river shoes. As for the compensations, naturally there was a good deal ofrivalry between the men on the right and left banks of the river asto which "wing" should advance the fastest; and one experiences acertain physical thrill in venturing under thirty feet of jammedlogs for the sole purpose of teasing the whole mass to cascade downon one, or of shooting a rapid while standing upright on a singletimber. I believe, too, it is considered the height of glory tobelong to a rear crew. Still, the water is cold and the hours long,and you have to sleep in a tent. It can readily be seen that the progress of the "rear" measuresthe progress of the drive. Some few logs in the "jam" may run fiftymiles a day--and often do--but if the sacking has gone slowly atthe rear, the drive may not have gained more than a thousand yards.Therefore Jimmy stayed at the rear. Jimmy was a mighty good riverman. Of course he had nerve, andcould do anything with a log and a peavy, and would fight at thedrop of a hat--any "bully boy" would qualify there--but also he hadjudgment. He knew how to use the water, how to recognise the keylog of jams, where to place his men--in short, he could get out thelogs. Now Jimmy also knew the river from one end to the other, sohe had arranged in his mind a sort of schedule for the twenty days.Forty-eight hours for the rollways; a day and a half to the upperrapids; three days into the dam pond; one day to sluice the drivethrough the Grand Rapids dam; three days for the Crossing; and soon. If everything went well, he could do it, but there must be nohitches in the programme. Even from this imperfect fragment of the schedule theinexperienced might imagine Jimmy had allowed an altogetherdisproportionate time to cover the mile or so from the rapids tothe dam pond. As it turned, however, he found he had not allowedenough, for at this point the river was peculiar and verytrying. The backwater of the dam extended up-stream a half mile; thenoccurred a rise of four feet, down the slope of which the waterwhirled and tumbled, only to spread out over a broad fan of gravelshallows. These shallows did the business. When the logs had bumpedthrough the tribulations of the rapids, they seemed to insistobstinately on resting in the shallows, like a lot of weariedcattle. The rear crew had to wade in. They heaved and pried andpushed industriously,
and at the end of it had the satisfaction ofseeing a single log slide reluctantly into the current. Sometimes adozen of them would clamp their peavies on either side, and bysheer brute force carry the stick to deep water. When you reflectthat there were some twenty thousand pieces in the drive, and thata good fifty per cent. of them balked below the rapids, you can seethat a rear crew of thirty men had its work cut out for it. Jimmy'sthree days were three-fourths gone, and his job not more than athird finished. McGann, the sluice boss, did a little figuring. "She'll hang over thim twinty days," he confided to Jimmy."Shure!" Jimmy replied not a word, but puffed piston-like smoke from hispipe. McGann shrugged in Celtic despair. But the little man had been figuring, too, and his arrangementswere more elaborate and more nearly completed than McGannsuspected. That very morning he sauntered leisurely out over therear logs, his hands in his pockets. Every once in a while hestopped to utter a few low-voiced words to one or another of themen. The person addressed first looked extremely astonished; thenshouldered his peavy and started for camp, leaving the diminishedrear a prey to curiosity. Soon the word went about. "Day and nightwork," they whispered, though it was a little difficult to see thedifference in ultimate effectiveness between a half crew workingall the time and a whole crew working half the time. About now Daly began to worry. He took the train to GrandRapids, anxiety written deep in his brows. When he saw the littleinadequate crew pecking in a futile fashion at the logs winged outover the shallows, he swore fervidly and sought Jimmy. Jimmy appeared calm. "We'll get them out all right, Mr. Daly," said he. "Get them out!" growled Daly. "Sure! But when? We ain'tgot all the summer this season. Those logs have got to hitour booms in fourteen days or they're no good to us!" "You'll have 'em," assured Jimmy. Such talk made Daly tired, and he said so. "Why, it'll take you a week to get her over those confoundedshallows," he concluded. "You got to get more men, Jimmy." "I've tried," answered the boss. "They ain't no more men to behad." "Suffering Moses!" groaned the owner. "It means the loss of afifty-thousand-dollar contract to me. You needn't tell me!I've been on the river all my life. I know you can't getthem off inside of a week." "I'll have 'em off to-morrow morning, but it may cost a littlesomething," asserted Jimmy, calmly.
Daly took one look at the mass of logs, and the fifteen menpulling out an average of one a minute. Then he returned in disgustto the city, where he began to adjust his ideas to a loss on hiscontract. At sundown the rear crew quit work, and swarmed to theencampment of white tents on the riverbank. There they hung wetclothes over a big skeleton framework built around a monster fire,and ate a dozen eggs apiece as a side dish to supper, and smokedpipes of strong "Peerless" tobacco, and swapped yarns, and sangsongs, and asked questions. To the latter they received nosatisfactory replies. The crew that had been laid off knew nothing.It appeared they were to go to work after supper. After supper,however, Jimmy told them to turn in and get a little more sleep.They did turn in, and speedily forgot to puzzle. At midnight, however, Jimmy entered the big tent quietly with alantern, touching each of the fresh men on the shoulder. They arosewithout comment, and followed him outside. There they were giventools. Then the little band filed silently down river under thestars. Jimmy led them, his hands deep in his pockets, puffing whitesteam-clouds at regular intervals from his "meerschaum" pipe. Aftertwenty minutes they struck the Water Works, then the boardwalk ofCanal Street. The word passed back for silence. Near the OrioleFactory their leader suddenly dodged in behind the piles of sawedlumber, motioning them to haste. A moment later a fat and dignifiedofficer passed, swinging his club. After the policeman had gone,Jimmy again took up his march at the head of fifteen men, nowthoroughly aroused to the fact that something unusual was afoot.Soon a faint roar lifted the night silence. They crossed a street,and a moment after stood at one end of the power-dam. The long smooth water shot over, like fluid steel, silent andinevitable, mirroring distorted flashes of light that were thestars. Below, it broke in white turmoil, shouting defiance at thecalm velvet rush above. Ten seconds later the current was broken. Aman, his heels caught against the combing, up to his knees inwater, was braced back at the exact angle to withstand the rush.Two other men passed down to him a short heavy timber. A third,plunging his arms and shoulders into the liquid, nailed it homewith heavy, inaudible strokes. As though by magic a second timberbraced the first, bolted through sockets already cut for it. Theworkers moved on eight feet, then another eight, then another. Moremen entered the water. A row of heavy, slanted supports grew outfrom the shoulder of the dam, dividing the waters into long,arrow-shaped furrows of light. At half-past twelve Tom Clute wasswept over the dam into the eddy. He swam ashore. Purdy took hisplace. When the supports had reached out over half of the river's span,and the water was dotted with the shoulders of men gracefullyslanted against the current, Jimmy gave orders to begin placing theflash-boards. Heavy planks were at once slid across the supports,where the weight of the racing water at once clamped them fast.Spikes held the top board beyond the possibility of a wrench loose.The smooth, quiet river, interrupted at last, murmured and snarledand eddied back, only to rush with increased vehemence around theend of the rapidly growing obstruction. The policeman, passing back and forth on Canal Street, heard nosound of the labour going on. If he had been an observantpoliceman, he would have noted an ever-changing tone in the volumeof
sound roaring up from the eddy below the dam. After a time evenhe remarked on a certain obvious phenomenon. "Sure!" said he; "now, that's funny!" He listened a moment, then passed on. The vagaries of the riverwere, after all, nothing to him. He belonged on Canal Street, eastside; and Canal Street, east side, seemed peaceful. The river had fallen absolutely silent. The last of Jimmy'sflash-boards was in place. Back in the sleeping town the clock inPierce's Tower struck two. Jimmy and his men, having thus raised the level of the dam agood three feet, emerged dripping from the west-side canal, andcheerfully took their way northward to where, in the chilly dawn,their companions were sleeping the sleep of the just. As theypassed the riffles they paused. A heavy grumbling issued from thelogs jammed there, a grumbling brutish and sullen, as though thereluctant animals were beginning to stir. The water had alreadybacked up from the raised dam. Of course the affair, from a river-driver's standpoint, at oncebecame exceedingly simple. The slumbering fifteen were aroused toastounded drowsiness. By three, just as the dawn was beginning todifferentiate the east from the west, the regular clank, clank,clink of the peavies proclaimed that due advantage of the highwater was being seized. From then until six was a matter of threehours more. A great deal can be accomplished in three hours withflood-water. The last little jam "pulled" just about the time thefirst citizen of the west side discovered that his cellar was fullof water. When that startled freeman opened the front door to seewhat was up, he uttered a tremendous ejaculation; and so, shortly,came to the construction of a raft. Well, the papers got out an extra edition with scare-heads about"Outrages" and "High-handed Lawlessness!" and factory owners by thecanals raised up their voices in bitterness over floodedfire-rooms; and property owners of perishable cellar goods howledabout damage suits; and the ordinary citizen took to bailing outthe hollow places of his domain. Toward nine o'clock, after thefirst excitement had died, and the flash-boards had beenindignantly yanked from their illegal places, a squadron of policewent out to hunt up the malefactor. The latter they discovered on aboom-pole directing the sluicing. From this position he declined tostir. One fat policeman ventured a toppling yard or so on thefloating timber, threw his hands aloft in loss of equilibrium, andwith a mighty effort regained the shore, where he sat down,panting. To the appeals of the squad to come and be arrested, Jimmypaid not the slightest heed. He puffed periodically on his"meerschaum" pipe, and directed the sluicing. Through thetwenty-foot gate about a million feet an hour passed. Thus ithappened that a little after noon Jimmy came peaceably ashore andgave himself up. "You won't have no more trouble below," he observed to McGann,his lieutenant, watching reflectively the last logs shoot throughthe gate. "Just tie right into her and keep her hustling." Then herefilled his pipe, lit it, and approached the expectant squad.
At the station-house he was interviewed by reporters. That is,they asked questions. To only one of them did they elicit areply. "Didn't you know you were breaking the law?" inquired theEagle man. "Didn't you know you'd be arrested?" "Sure!" replied Jimmy, with obvious contempt. The next morning the court-room was crowded. Jimmy pleadedguilty, and was fined five hundred dollars or ninety days in jail.To the surprise of everybody he fished out a tremendous roll andpaid the fine. The spectators considered it remarkable that ariver-boss should carry such an amount. They had not been presentat the interview between Jimmy and his principal the nightbefore. The latter stood near the door as the little man came out. "Jimmy," said Mr. Daly, distinctly, so that everyone could hear,"I am extremely sorry to see you in this trouble; but perhaps itmay prove a lesson to you. Next time you must understand that youare not supposed to exceed your instructions." Thus did the wily Daly publicly disclaim his liability. "Yes, sir," said Jimmy, meekly. "Did you get the logs in time,Mr. Daly?" They looked at each other steadily. Then, for the first and onlytime, the black and white mask of Jimmy's inscrutability meltedaway. In his left eye appeared a faint glimmer. Then the lefteyelid slowly descended.