for the cook-house and a larger building, destined
to serve as bunk-house for the regular boom-crew. There would also be a
blacksmith's forge, a storehouse, a tool and supply-house, a barn, and
small separate shanties for the married men. Below more labourers with
picks, shovels, axes, and scrapers were cutting out and levelling a road
which would, when finished, meet the county road to town. The numerous
bayous of great marsh were crossed by "float-bridges," lying flat on the
surface of the water, which spurted up in rhythmical little jets under
the impact of hoofs. Down stream eight miles, below the mills, and just
beyond where the drawbridge crossed over to Monrovia, Duncan McLeod's
shipyards clipped and sawed, and steamed and bent and bolted away at two
tugboats, the machinery for which was already being stowed in the hold
of a vessel lying at wharf in Chicago. In the storerooms of hardware
firms porters carried and clerks checked off chains, strap iron, bolts,
spikes, staples, band iron, bar iron, peavies, cant-hooks, pike-poles,
sledge-hammers, blocks, ropes, and cables.

These things took time and attention to details; also a careful
supervision. The spring increased, burst into leaf and bloom, and
settled into summer. Orde was constantly on the move. As soon as
low water came with midsummer, however, he arranged matters to run
themselves as far as possible, left with Newmark minute instructions as
to personal supervision, and himself departed to Redding. Here he joined
a crew which Tom North had already collected, and betook himself to the
head of the river.

He knew exactly what he intended to do. Far back on the head-waters he
built a dam. The construction of it was crude, consisting merely of log
cribs filled with stone and debris placed at intervals across the bed
of the stream, against which slanted logs made a face. The gate operated
simply, and could be raised to let loose an entire flood. And indeed
this was the whole purpose of the dam. It created a reservoir from which
could be freed new supplies of water to eke out the dropping spring
freshets.

Having accomplished this formidable labour--for the trees had to be cut
and hauled, the stone carted, and the earth shovelled--the crew next
moved down a good ten miles to where the river dropped over a rapids
rough and full of boulders. Here were built and placed a row of
stone-filled log cribs in a double row down stream to define the channel
and to hold