tle Margaret Llewellen showed Nan where the first anemones and
violets hid under last year's drifted leaves.

The river ice went out with a rush after it had rained a few hours;
after that the "drives" of logs were soon started. Nan went down to the
long, high bridge which spanned the river and watched the flood carry
the logs through.

At first they came scatteringly, riding the foaming waves end-on, and
sometimes colliding with the stone piers of the bridge with sufficient
force to split the unhewn timbers from end to end, some being laid open
as neatly as though done with axe and wedge.

When the main body of the drive arrived, however, the logs were like
herded cattle, milling in the eddies, stampeded by a cross-current,
bunching under the bridge arches like frightened steers in a chute. And
the drivers herded the logs with all the skill of cowboys on the range.

Each drive was attended by its own crew, who guarded the logs on either
bank, launching those that shoaled on the numerous sandbars or in the
shallows, keeping them from piling up in coves and in the mouths of
estuaries, or creeks, some going ahead at the bends to fend off and
break up any formation of the drifting timbers that promised to become a
jam.

Behind the drive floated the square bowed and square sterned chuck-boat,
which carried cook and provisions for the men. A "boom", logs chained
together, end to end, was thrown out from one shore of the wide stream
at night, and anchored at its outer end. Behind this the logs were
gathered in an orderly, compact mass and the men could generally get
their sleep, save for the watchman; unless there came a sudden rise of
water in the night.

It was a sight long to be remembered, Nan thought, when the boom was
broken in the morning. Sometimes an increasing current piled the logs up
a good bit. It was a fear-compelling view the girl had of the river
on one day when she went with Uncle Henry to see the first drive from
Blackton's camp. Tom was coming home with his team and was not engaged
in the drive. But reckless Rafe was considered, for his age, a very
smart hand on a log drive.

The river had risen two feet at the Pine Camp bridge overnight. It was a
boiling brown flood, covered with drifting foam and debris. The roar
of the freshet awoke Nan in her bed before daybreak. So she was
not surprised to see the river in such a turmoil when, after a hasty
breakfast, she and Uncle Henry walked beside the flood