The Rules of the Game

by Stewart Edward White

  XIII

  The cook was early a foot next morning. Bob, restless with theuneasiness of the first night out of doors, saw the flicker of the fireagainst the tent canvas long before the first signs of daylight. Infact, the gray had but faintly lightened the velvet black of the nightwhen the cook thrust his head inside the big sleeping tents to utter awild yell of reveille.

  The men stirred sleepily, stretched, yawned, finally kicked aside theirblankets. Bob stumbled into the outer air. The chill of early morningstruck into his bones. Teeth chattering, he hurried to the river bankwhere he stripped and splashed his body with the bracing water. Then herubbed down with the little towel Tommy Gould had allowed him. Thereaction in this chill air was slow in coming--Bob soon learned that theearly cold bath out of doors is a superstition--and he shivered fromtime to time as he propped up his little mirror against a stump. Then heshaved, anointing his face after the careful manner of college boys.This satisfactorily completed, he fished in his duffle bag to find histooth brush and soap. His hair he arranged painstakingly with a pair ofmilitary brushes. He further manipulated a nail-brush vigorously, andended with manicuring his nails. Then, clean, vigorous, fresh, butsomewhat chilly, he packed away his toilet things and started for camp.

  Whereupon, for the first time, he became aware of one of the rivermen,pipe clenched between his teeth, watching him sardonically.

  Bob nodded, and made as though to pass.

  "Oh, bub!" said the older man.

  Bob stopped.

  "Say," drawled the riverman, "air you as much trouble to yourself_every_ day as this?"

  Bob laughed, and dove for camp. He found it practically deserted. Themen had eaten breakfast and departed for work. Welton greeted him.

  "Well, bub," said he, "didn't know but we'd lost you. Feed your face,and we'll go upstream."

  Bob ate rapidly. After breakfast Welton struck into a well-trodden foottrail that led by a circuitous route up the river bottom, over points ofland, around swamps. Occasionally it forked. Then, Welton explained, onefork was always a short cut across a bend, while the other followedaccurately the extreme bank of the river. They took this latter andlongest trail, always, in order more closely to examine the state of thedrive. As they proceeded upstream they came upon more and more logs,some floating free, more stranded gently along the banks. After a timethey encountered the first of the driving crew. This man was standing onan extreme point, leaning on his peavy, watching the timbers float past.Pretty soon several logs, held together by natural cohesion, floated tothe bend, hesitated, swung slowly and stopped. Other logs, following,carromed gently against them and also came to rest.

  Immediately the riverman made a flying leap to the nearest. He hit itwith a splash that threw the water high to either side, immediatelycaught his equilibrium, and set to work with his peavy. He seemed toknow just where to bend his efforts. Two, then three, logs, disentangledfrom the mass, floated away. Finally, all moved slowly forward. Theriverman intent on his work, was swept from view.

  "After he gets them to running free, he'll come ashore," said Welton, inanswer to Bob's query. "Oh, just paddle ashore with his peavy. Thenhe'll come back up the trail. This bend is liable to jam, and so we haveto keep a man here."

  They walked on and on, up the trail. Every once in a while they cameupon other members of the jam crew, either watching, as was the firstman, at some critical point, or working in twos and threes to keep thereluctant timbers always moving. At one place six or eight were pickingaway busily at a jam that had formed bristling quite across the river.Bob would have liked to stop to watch; but Welton's practised eye sawnothing to it.

  "They're down to the key log, now," he pronounced. "They'll have it outin a jiffy."

  Inside of two miles or so farther they left behind them the last memberof the jam crew and came upon an outlying scout of the "rear." ThenWelton began to take the shorter trails. At the end of another half-hourthe two plumped into the full activity of the rear itself.

  Bob saw two crews of men, one on either bank, busily engaged inrestoring to the current the logs stranded along the shore. In somecases this merely meant pushing them afloat by means of the peavies.Again, when the timbers had gone hard aground, they had to be rolledover and over until the deeper water caught them. In extreme cases, whenevidently the freshet water had dropped away from them, leaving themhigh and dry, a number of men would clamp on the jaws of their peaviesand carry the logs bodily to the water. In this active work the men wereeverywhere across the surface of the river. They pushed and heaved fromthe instability of the floating logs as easily as though they hadpossessed beneath their feet the advantages of solid land. When theywanted to go from one place to another across the clear water they hadvarious methods of propelling themselves--either broad on, by rollingthe log treadwise, or endways by paddling, or by jumping strongly on oneend. The logs dipped and bobbed and rolled beneath them; the waterflowed over their feet; but always they seemed to maintain their balanceunconsciously, and to give their whole attention to the work in hand.They worked as far as possible from the decks of logs, but did nothesitate, when necessary, to plunge even waist-deep into the icycurrent. Behind them they left a clear river.

  Like most exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would have seemedto an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task, were it not for themisfortunes of one youth. That boy was about half the time in the water.He could stand upright on a log very well as long as he tried to donothing else. This partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive.But as soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log commenced toroll; he to struggle for his balance. It always ended with a mightysplash and a shout of joy from every one in sight, as the unfortunateyouth soused in all over. Then, after many efforts, he dragged himselfout, his garments heavy and dripping, and cautiously tried to gain theperpendicular. This ordinarily required several attempts, each of whichmeant another ducking as the treacherous log rolled at just the wronginstant. The boy was game, though, and kept at it earnestly in spite ofrepeated failure.

  Welton watched two repetitions of this performance.

  "Dick!" he roared across the tumult of sound.

  Roaring Dick, whose light, active figure had been seen everywhere acrossthe logs, looked up, recognized Welton, and zigzagged skilfully ashore.He stamped the water from his shoes.

  "Why don't you fire that kid ashore?" demanded Welton. "Do you want todrown him? He's so cold now he don't know where's his feet?"

  Roaring Dick glanced carelessly at the boy. The latter had succeeded ingaining the shallows, where he was trying to roll over a stranded log.His hands were purple and swollen; his face puffed and blue; violentshivers shook him from head to foot; his teeth actually chattered when,for a moment, he relaxed his evident intention to stick it throughwithout making a sign. All his movements were slow and awkward, and hisdripping clothes clung tight to his body.

  "Oh, him!" said Roaring Dick in reply. "I didn't pay no more attentionto him than to one of these yere hell divers. He ain't no _good_, so Iclean overlooked him. Here, you!" he cried suddenly.

  The boy looked up, Bob saw him start convulsively, and knew that he hadmet the impact of that peculiar dynamic energy in Roaring Dick's nervousface. He clambered laboriously from the shallows, the water drainingfrom the bottom of his "stagged" trousers.

  "Get to camp," snapped Dick. "You're laid off."

  "Why did you ever take such a man on in the first place?" asked Welton.

  "He was here when I come," replied Roaring Dick, indifferently, "and,anyway, he's bound he's goin to be a river-hog. You couldn't keep himout with a fly-screen."

  "How're things going?" inquired Welton.

  "All right," said Roaring Dick. "This ain't no drive to have thingsgoin' wrong. A man could run a hand-organ, a quiltin' party and thisdrive all to once and never drop a stitch."

  "How about old Murdock's dam? Looks like he might make trouble."

  "Ain't got to old Murdock yet," said Roaring Dick. "When we
do, we'lltrim his whiskers to pattern. Don't you worry none about Murdock."

  "I don't," laughed Welton. "But, Dick, what are all these deadheads Isee in the river? Our logs are all marked, aren't they?"

  "They's been some jobbing done way below our rollways," said RoaringDick, "and the mossbacks have been taking 'em out long before our drivegot this far. Them few deadheads we've picked up along the line;mossbacks left 'em stranded. They ain't very many."

  "I'll send up a marking hammer, and we'll brand them. Finders keepers."

  "Sure," said Roaring Dick.

  He nodded and ran out over the logs. The work leaped. Wherever he wentthe men took hold as though reanimated by an electric current.

  "Dick's a driver," said Welton, reflectively, "and he gets out the logs.But I'm scared he don't take this little job serious."

  He looked out over the animated scene for a moment in silence. Then heseemed suddenly to remember his companion.

  "Well, son," said he, "that's called 'sacking' the river. The rear crewis the place of honour, let me tell you. The old timers used to take agreat pride in belonging to a crack rear on a big drive. When you getone side of the river working against the other, it's great fun. I'veseen some fine races in my day."

  At this moment two men swung up the river trail, bending to the broadtump lines that crossed the tops of their heads. These tump linessupported rather bulky wooden boxes running the lengths of the men'sbacks. Arrived at the rear, they deposited their burdens. One set tobuilding a fire; the other to unpacking from the boxes all the utensilsand receptacles of a hearty meal. The food was contained in big lardtins. It was only necessary to re-heat it. In ten minutes the usual callof "grub pile" rang out across the river. The men came ashore. Eachgroup of five or six built its little fire. The wind sucked aloft theseinnumerable tiny smokes, and scattered them in a thin mist through thetrees.

  Welton stayed to watch the sacking until after three o'clock. Then hetook up the river trail to the rear camp. This Bob found to be much likethe other, but larger.

  "Ordinarily on drive we have a wanigan," said Welton. "A wanigan's a bigscow. It carries the camp and supplies to follow the drive. Here we useteams; and it's some of a job, let me tell you! The roads are bad, andsometimes it's a long ways around. Hard sledding, isn't it Billy?" heinquired of the teamster, who was warming his hands by the fire.

  "Well, I always get there," the latter replied with some pride. "Fromthe Little Fork here I only tipped over six times, all told."

  The cook, who had been listening near by, grunted.

  "Only time I wasn't with you, Billy," said he; "that's why you got thenerve to tell that!"

  "It's a fact!" insisted the driver.

  The young fellow who had been ordered off the river sat alone by thedrying-fire. Now that he had warmed up and dried off, he was seen to bea rather good-looking boy, dark-skinned, black-eyed, with overhanging,thick, straight brows, like a line from temple to temple. These gave himeither the sullen, biding look of an Indian or an air of setdetermination, as the observer pleased. Just now he contemplated thefire rather gloomily.

  Welton sat down on the same log with him.

  "Well, bub," said the old riverman good-naturedly, "so you thought you'dlike to be a riverman?"

  "Yes, sir," replied the boy, with a certain sullen reserve.

  "Where did you think you learned to ride a log?"

  "I've been around a little at the booms."

  "I see. Well, it's a different proposition when you come to working on'em in fast water."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where you from?"

  "Down Greenville way."

  "Farm?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Back to the farm now, eh?"

  "I suppose so."

  "Don't like the notion, eh?"

  "No!" cried the boy, with a flash of passion.

  "Still like to tackle the river?"

  "Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, again encased in his sullenapathy.

  "If I send you back to-morrow, would you like to tackle it again?"

  "Oh, yes!" said the boy eagerly. "I didn't have any sort of a show whenyou saw me to-day! I can do a heap better than that. I was froze throughand couldn't handle myself."

  Welton grinned.

  "What you so stuck on getting wet for?" he inquired.

  "I dunno," replied the boy vaguely. "I just like the woods."

  "Well, I got no notion of drownding you off in the first white water wecome across," said Welton; "but I tell you what to do: you wait aroundhere a few days, helping the cook or Billy there, and I'll take you downto the mill and put you on the booms where you can practise in stillwater with a pike-pole, and can go warm up in the engine room when youfall off. Suit you?"

  "Yes, sir. Thank you," said the boy quietly; but there was a warm glowin his eye.

  By now it was nearly dark.

  "Guess we'll bunk here to-night," Welton told Bob casually.

  Bob looked his dismay.

  "Why, I left everything down at the other camp," he cried, "even mytooth brush and hair brush!"

  Welton looked at him comically.

  "Me, too," said he. "We won't neither of us be near as much trouble toourselves to-morrow, will we?"

  So he had overheard the riverman's remark that morning. Bob laughed.

  "That's right," approved Welton, "take it easy. Necessities is a greatcomfort, but you can do without even them."

  After supper all sprawled around a fire. Welton's big bulk extended inthe acme of comfort. He puffed his pipe straight up toward the stars,and swore gently from time to time when the ashes dropped back into hiseyes.

  "Now that's a good kid," he said, waving a pipe toward the other firewhere the would-be riverman was helping wash the dishes. "He'll neverbe a first-class riverman, but he's a good kid."

  "Why won't he make a good riverman?" asked Bob.

  "Same reason you wouldn't," said Welton bluntly. "A good white water manhas to start younger. Besides, what's the use? There won't be anyrivermen ten year from now. Say, you," he raised his voice peremptorily,"what do you call yourself?"

  The boy looked up startled, saw that he was indicated, stammered, andcaught his voice.

  "John Harvey, sir," he replied.

  "Son of old John who used to be on the Marquette back in the seventies?"

  "Yes, sir; I suppose so."

  "He ought to be a good kid: he comes of good stock," muttered Welton;"but he'll never be a riverman. No use trying to shove that shape peg ina round hole!"