distinctive badge. They were filed to needle points the better to cling to slippery logs, and varied from a quarter to threequarters of an inch in length. Everywhere in a river town you could see the trace of these "corks"-the wooden sidewalks were picked into fine splinters; the floors of stores and saloons were pockmarked with them. But more absolute identification than any mere externals-which after all lay within the purchase of the veriest "high banker" "* -were the powerful swing of the shoulders, the loose, graceful carriage of the body, and the devil-may-care boldness of the humorous and reckless eyes. For these are things one cannot buy. They come with much peavy work, the balance of unstable footing, and the cheerful facing of danger.

First and foremost your true riverman can ride a log. This does not mean merely that he is able to stand upright or to jump from one to another without splashing inthough even that is no mean feat, as a trial

* High banker-a term of insult, i. e., one who walks on the bank of a river rather than ride the logs.

will convince you. That is the kindergarten of it. The saw log in the water is not only his object of labor but his means of transportation. Your true riverman on drive almost never steps on land except to eat and sleep.

A journey down stream is to him an affair of great simplicity. He pushes into the current a stick of timber, jumps lightly atop it, leans against his peavy, and floats away as graceful and motionless as a Grecian statue. When his unstable craft overtakes other logs, he deserts it, runs forward as far as he can the logs bobbing and awash behind his spring-and so continues on another timber. Jack Boyd once, for a bet, rode for twelve miles down Grand River on a log he could carry to the stream's bank across his shoulders! Fully half the time his feet were submerged to the ankles.

Nor does quick water always cause your expert riverman to disembark. Using his peavy as a balancing pole, and treading with squirrel-like quickness as his footing rolls, he will run rapids of considerable force and volume. When the tail of a drive

passes through the chute of a dam, there are always half a dozen or so of the "rear" men who, out of sheer bravado, will run through standing upright like circus riders and yelling like fiends.

To ferry from one side of a waterway to the other is a more difficult matter, but it is accomplished. There are various ways of propelling a log across current. If the stream is narrow, the riverjack usually, by means of a violent running jump, lands with both feet on the rear end of the timber. The bow thereupon rises in a flurry of foam, the rear is depressed, and the log is forced violently ahead. At the proper moment to avoid upset the riverman runs forward to the center. If scattering logs are adrift, progress can often be compelled by seizing on these with the peavy and pulling and pushing them back. But one of the prettiest methods I saw Jack employ in still water. He worked his log sideways by rolling it under him-birling, the process is called. Of course one can always paddle with the peavy, but this is slow and commonplace.

The deck of a log, besides being a means of transportation, is also valuable as a point of vantage from which to work. Men push out stranded logs, heave, lift, do everything that the heavy labor of moving timber calls for, not from the stable foundation of the earth, but from the rolling and slipping disadvantage of floating timber.. Their adjustments have become entirely unconscious. I have watched them hours at a time, fascinated by the nicety with which they trod now one way, now the other, as the log rolled; the exactness with which they shifted footing as the pressure on their support became too great for its buoyancy. And all the time their minds were absorbed in the labor.

Skill of this individual sort is presupposed; just as is skill in horsemanship with a cowboy. Without it a man is absolutely useless. And just as a cowboy likes to show off or compete in a kind of horsemanship which can have no practical application to his trade, so does the riverman do his tricks. A man in Marinette, whose

This, with ability to handle well the peavy, constitutes the essential equipment of the cheapest man who would go on drive. There is in addition a deep "log sense" which comes only with experience, and to some more than to others. The tendencies of currents, the effect of water in volume and swiftness, the places where jams are likely to form, the why of them, and how to avoid them, where jams will break, the probable situation of key logs, rollway breaking, dam running, and a thousand other intensely technical details-all these are within the grasp of the men who, like Jack Boyd, rise to the top of the profession. Now, in addition to judgment, balance and quickness, you must add an enormous strength. The saw log is a heavy and inert mass which the riverman is called on a hundred times a day to tug at with all the heart and pith there is in him. His muscles develop and harden like steel.

And as a last item of physical equipment must be included that tough endurance which is at once demanded and developed by the wild life anywhere.

During drive your riverman often works fourteen hours a day. The logs must go out during the times of high water, and. high water is in the early spring. His feet are wet all the time. There is much rain and some snow. Camp is in a different place every night. Blankets are often soaked beyond the possibility of drying until the sun again appears. I have often seen the rear crew "sacking" stranded logs while rotten ice was still running in the current. The men worked immersed to the waist in this literal ice water. Once in two or three hours one would build a little fire to thaw out by. Ordinary men could not live in the environment of these men's daily work.

Naturally this sort of thing demands a rather high degree of resolution. The latter quality rises to the dignity of absolute courage at times. Jams are not an abnormal part of the work, as most people suppose, but a regular incident of the day's business. In the breaking of them the jam crew must be quick and sure. I know of no finer sight than the going out of a tall jam. The men pry, heave and tug sometimes for hours. Then all at once the apparently solid surface begins to creak and settle. The men zigzag rapidly to shore.

A crash and spout of waters marks where the first tier is already toppling into the current. The front melts like sugar. A vast, formidable movement agitates the brown tangle as far as you can see. And then with another sudden and mighty crash the whole river bursts into a torrent of motion.

If everything has gone well the men are all safe ashore, leaning on their peavies, but ready at any instant to hasten out for the purpose of discouraging by quick, hard work any tendency to plug on the part of the moving timbers. I have seen men out of bravado jump from the breast of a jam, just as it was breaking down to a floating log ahead, thus to be carried in the sweep and rush far down the river. A single slip meant death. Men like Jack Boyd never took such foolish chances; but it was magnificent just the same.

right.

man.

But sometimes things do not go quite Few drives finish without losing a There are magnificent rescues, narrow escapes. However, these men appear to accept whatever comes as a matter of course; or, perhaps more truly, it is their pride never to show emotion of any sort. I have seen dozens of such cases; but perhaps two will suffice as examples.

One man was dragged out by the collar from a very dangerous predicament between two parts of a breaking jam. To gain safety his rescuer, burdened by the victim of the accident, had fairly to scale the breast of the falling logs. For ten seconds it looked like sure death to both, but by a combination of audacity and sheer luck they reached the bank. Most people would have paused for congratulations and to talk it over. Not they. The rescuer, still retaining his grip on the man's collar, twisted him around, and delivered one good kick.

"There, damn you'" said he; and the two fell to work without further comment.

Late in February, during a thaw, Jimmy Downing, one of our own foremen, fell over a dam into the eddy below. He could not swim, and owing to certain sets of current, growth of timber and lay of ice, we could not get to him. The water was cold, and sucked with terrific force beneath a shelf of ice at the lower end. Sure death again: but Jimmy, befriended of the gods, hit his knee against a single little ledge. Though