the slow pressure developed from the three
or four miles of logs forced against each other by the pushing of the
current, the breast of the jam began to rise. Timbers up-ended, crossed,
interlocked, slid one over the other, mounted higher and higher in the
formidable game of jack-straws the loss of which spelled death to the
players.

Immediately, and with feverish activity, the men nearest at hand
attacked the work. Logs on top they tumbled and rolled into the current
below. Men beneath the breast tugged and pried in search of the key logs
causing all the trouble. Others "flattened out the wings," hoping to get
a "draw" around the ends. As the stoppage of the drive indicated to
the men up and down stream that a jam had formed, they gathered at the
scene--those from above over the logs, those from below up the river
trail.

Rarely, unless in case of unusual complications, did it take more than
a few hours at most to break the jam. The breast of it went out with a
rush. More slowly the wings sucked in. Reluctantly the mass floating on
the surface for miles up stream stirred, silently moved forward. For a
few minutes it was necessary to watch carefully until the flow onward
steadied itself, until the congestion had spaced and ordered as before.
Then the men moved back to their posts; the drive was resumed. At night
the river was necessarily left to its own devices. Rivermen, with the
touch of superstition inseparably connected with such affairs, believe
implicitly that "logs run free at night." Certainly, though it might
be expected that each morning would reveal a big jam to break, such was
rarely the case. The logs had usually stopped, to be sure, but generally
in so peaceful a situation as easily to be started on by a few minutes'
work. Probably this was because they tended to come to rest in the slow,
still reaches of the river, through which, in daytime, they would be
urged by the rivermen.

Jams on the river, contrary to general belief, are of very common
occurrence. Throughout the length of the drive there were probably
three or four hang-ups a day. Each of these had to be broken, and in the
breaking was danger. The smallest misstep, the least slowness in reading
the signs of the break, the slightest lack of promptness in acting on
the hint or of agility in leaping from one to the other of the plunging
timbers, the faintest flicker from rigid attention to the antagonist
crouching on the spring, would mean insta