Roberts The Lure of Piper's Glen

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-946-8
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 78 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Excerpt: When the bottoms drop out of the logging-roads, the crews leave the camps about the headwaters of Racket River and return to their scattered homes, leaving the winter's cut on the brows. A few weeks later, when all the melted snow of the hills is rushing along the watercourses, lifting and bursting the rotted ice, and the piles of brown logs on the steep banks go rolling and thundering down into roaring waters, the more active and daring of the workers return to duty with the harassed timber. Now they wear well-greased boots instead of oily shoepacks and larrigans?boots with high tops strapped securely around the leg, and strong heels and thick soles. In the sole and heel of each boot are fixed fifty caulks or short steel spikes?a hundred teeth for every stream-driver to bite a foothold with into running logs. The task of keeping the drive moving down the swirling and tortuous channel of the upper reaches of Racket River calls for skill and agility and strength and hardihood, and frequently for a high degree of stark physical courage. The water is as cold as the sodden ice which still drifts upon it, crushed and churned by the grinding logs. It sloshes high along the wooded banks, tearing tangles of alders out by the roots and undermining old cedars until they totter and fall and swirl away on the flood. To plunge hip-deep into that torrent to clear some log caught broadside to the rush by snag or tree or rock, calls for hardihood of spirit and an iron constitution. Where one log catches and is permitted to remain stationary, others catch, pile up, plunge and rear and dive, filling the channel to its rocky bed and blocking it from bank to bank with criss-crossed timber. The mad river, crowned with more logs and ice, strikes and recoils and backs up behind the jamb: spray flies over it; clear water spouts from it; the twisted timbers heave and groan and splinter. To go out on to such a barrier as this, and find and free the key-logs with a peavy, calls for all the qualities of a seasoned riverman and the courage of a veteran soldier into the bargain.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roberts, Theodore Goodridge

Leseproben

CHAPTER I

THE COCK OF THE RIVER
When the bottoms drop out of the logging-roads, the crews leave the camps about the headwaters of Racket River and return to their scattered homes, leaving the winter's cut on the "brows." A few weeks later, when all the melted snow of the hills is rushing along the watercourses, lifting and bursting the rotted ice, and the piles of brown logs on the steep banks go rolling and thundering down into roaring waters, the more active and daring of the workers return to duty with the harassed timber. Now they wear well-greased boots instead of oily shoepacks and larrigans—boots with high tops strapped securely around the leg, and strong heels and thick soles. In the sole and heel of each boot are fixed fifty caulks or short steel spikes—a hundred teeth for every "stream-driver" to bite a foothold with into running logs. The task of keeping the "drive" moving down the swirling and tortuous channel of the upper reaches of Racket River calls for skill and agility and strength and hardihood, and frequently for a high degree of stark physical courage. The water is as cold as the sodden ice which still drifts upon it, crushed and churned by the grinding logs. It sloshes high along the wooded banks, tearing tangles of alders out by the roots and undermining old cedars until they totter and fall and swirl away on the flood. To plunge hip-deep into that torrent to clear some log caught broadside to the rush by snag or tree or rock, calls for hardihood of spirit and an iron constitution. Where one log catches and is permitted to remain stationary, others catch, pile up, plunge and rear and dive, filling the channel to its rocky bed and blocking it from bank to bank with criss-crossed timber. The mad river, crowned with more logs and ice, strikes and recoils and backs up behind the jamb: spray flies over it; clear water spouts from it; the twisted timbers heave and groan and splinter. To go out on to such a barrier as this, and find and free the key-logs with a peavy, calls for all the qualities of a seasoned riverman and the courage of a veteran soldier into the bargain. On Racket River, Mark Ducat, of Piper's Glen, was the most daring and successful negotiator of troublesome logs jambed or jambing or running free. He was cock of the upper river, as his father, Peter, had been before him, and his grandfather, Hercules Ducat, had been before Peter. For five years, on five successive drives, he had shown his superiority to his fellow wielders of peavy and pikepole as a "cuffer" of running logs and a breaker of jambs. And not only that. He was as nimble with his feet and hands, and as fearless in diversion as in toil. There were stronger men than Mark on the river, but there was no man possessed of Mark's combination of strength and speed and nerve. The stronger fellows were too heavy to be speedy. He stood five feet and eleven inches in his spiked boots and weighed one hundred and seventy-eight pounds. New men joined the drive each spring for the brief and well-paid job, and likely lads arrived at their full growth and an appreciation of their own powers; and so it happened that Mark Ducat's title never went a year unchallenged. But still he was Cock of the River. After the first rush of the drive one spring, the boss left Mark and a gang of nine "white-water boys" to keep the logs clear at Frenchman's Elbow, the worst point for jambs in ten miles of bad water. Mark was foreman and Joe Bender was cook. All the others were Racket River men, with the exception of a big stranger with a black beard who said that he was from Quebec. Charlie Lavois was the stranger's name. Underdone beef was his favorite diet and overproof whisky was his favorite drink. He had chopped throughout the previous winter in a big camp on the Gateneau and, to avoid making himself conspicuous, to keep his daily cut down to normal, he had swung his ax only with one hand; and because six men had once attacked him with knives and sticks of stove-wood after a game of forty-fives in which his skill had emptied all their pockets, and he had killed two of them and disabled the others in self defence, he had thought it advisable to leave his native Province for a little while—all this by his own telling. "Ye may be that good in Quebec, Charlie Lavois, but any six yearlin' babies on the Racket River country in this here old Province of New Brunswick could knock the stuffin' out o' ye with nothin' in their hands but their rattles an' little rubber suckin'-nipples," said Joe Bender, the cook. This sally of rustic wit was well received by the lads of Racket River, but Mr. Lavois took exception to it. "Maybe ye could do it yerself," retorted Lavois. "Maybe I could, but it ain't my job," returned Bender. "My job's keepin' the blankets dry an' the beans an' biscuits hot for champeens like yerself. I ain't Cock o' the River." "Cock of the river?" queried Lavois, spitting into the fire. "Where I come from, this here dribble o' dirty water'd be named a brook an' the cock o' it would be called a cockerel." "That's me," said Mark Ducat. "Fetch a lantern an' a deck of cards, Joe. Kick up the fire, Jerry Brown. We'll spread a blanket an' commence with a little game of forty-fives, Mister; an' ye'll find this cockerel right with ye all the way from flippin' a card to manslaughter." They played for three hours, at the end of which period of stress the man from Quebec threw the cards into the fire and sent a volley of blasting oaths after them. He was a poor loser. By morning the logs were running thin, for the weight of the drive had passed, and so it was an easy matter to keep the crooked channel clear at Frenchman's Elbow. Charlie Lavois leapt onto a big stick of spruce, with a pikepole held horizontally across his chest, and turned it slowly over and over under his spiked feet as it wallowed heavily along with the brown current. Mark Ducat took a short run and a flying jump and landed on the other end of the same log, facing Lavois. He also carried a pikepole horizontally in his two hands. The log sank lower; and now it turned with increasing speed to the tread of four spiked feet biting into its tough bark; and still it continued on its way through sloshing ripple and spinning eddy. The rest of the gang followed down both shores, shouting in derision and encouragement. Even Joe Bender deserted his post to see the Cock of the River and the champion from Quebec twirl a log together. "Grand day," said Mark, grinning. "Not so bad," agreed Charlie Lavois. "Two's one too many for this log," said Mark. "I'm gettin' my feet wet." "Yer dead right. But ye'll be wet clear over yer ears in ten seconds," retorted the other. Then Mark began to jump with both feet, slowing the spinning of the big log jerk by jerk and finally reversing the spin. Again he trod the log, but now from left to right; and Lavois was forced to conform his movements to the reversed motion. The men ashore yelled their approval. Their man had "jerked the spin" away from the big Quebecker. Then Lavois commenced jumping in a furious effort to check and reverse against Mark. Mark trod against him with what appeared to be all his strength and skill for thirty seconds or more; and then, without so much as the flicker of an eye to signal his intention, he jumped swiftly around and reversed the stamp and thrust of his flying feet. The tortured log spun with sudden incredible speed—a speed entirely unexpected by Charles Lavois. Charlie's feet, stamping mightily against stubborn resistance, and suddenly relieved of their resistance, went around with the log; and Charlie followed his feet. The log reared high, but Ducat skipped along its lifting back and brought it to a level keel. A yell of joy went up from the husky fellows ashore. The man who had gained his title by sousing them in the river had maintained it by sousing the man from Quebec. Lavois swam ashore and hastened upstream to the fire without a word. There he pulled off his boots and coat, took a swig from a flask on his hip and sat so close to the bank of red embers that steam arose from him. Mark Ducat rode the big log ashore, using the pike-pole for a paddle. He, too, made his way to Joe Bender's fire, accompanied by such members of the gang as were on that side of the river. He, too, removed his coat and boots and sat close to the glow. "Is there anything ye can do, Lavois, 'cept shoot off yer mouth about what ye done on the Gateneau?" asked Mark. "Did ye hear me speak o' playin' monkey-tricks on logs?" returned Lavois. "No, ye didn't. Ye heard me tell how I knocked the everlastin' lights out o' six full-growed men, an' Quebec men, at that—real white-water boys." "Do tell? What d'ye fight with when ye get real riled?" "Everything God give me an' most anything I kin lay me hands on." "That suits me fine." Both reached for their spiked boots. "Boots is barred," said Joe Bender, who held a long-handled iron stew-pan in his hairy right fist. "Ye fight in yer socks, boys. Axes, grindstones, peavy, rocks an' clubs an' knives is all barred along with boots; an' the first one to reach for any sich article gits soaked good an' plenty with this here stew-pan. I ain't Champeen Buster o' the Gateneau nor Cock o' Racket River, but I be a ring-tailed roarin' Hell-an'-all with a stew-pan." "That suits me, Joe," said Mark Ducat. "I guess I kin do the job with me hands an' feet," said Lavois. Both men stood up. They faced each other, six feet apart. Lavois was older than Ducat by eight or ten years and heavier by close upon twenty pounds. But as Ducat was only twenty-six, both were young men. ...