e rear.

Orde discovered about noon that the jam crew was having its troubles.
Immediately below Reed's dam ran a long chute strewn with boulders,
which was alternately a shallow or a stretch of white-water according
as the stream rose or fell. Ordinarily the logs were flushed over this
declivity by opening the gate, behind which a head of water had
been accumulated. Now, however, the efficiency of the gate had been
destroyed. Orde early discovered that he was likely to have trouble in
preventing the logs rushing through the chute from grounding into a bad
jam on the rapids below.

For a time the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In the
centre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier. Along
the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own momentum into
places so shallow as to discourage any hope of refloating them unless
by main strength. As the sluicing of the nine or ten million feet that
constituted this particular drive went forward, the situation rapidly
became worse.

"Tom, we've got to get flood-water unless we want to run into an awful
job there," said Orde to the foreman. "I wonder if we can't drop that
gate 'way down to get something for a head."

The two men examined the chute and the sluice-gate attentively for some
time.

"If we could clear out the splinters and rubbish, we might spike a
couple of saplings on each side for the gate to slide down into,"
speculated North. "Might try her on."

The logs were held up in the pond, and a crew of men set to work to cut
away, as well as they might in the rush of water, the splintered ends of
the old sill and apron. It was hard work. Newmark, watching, thought it
impracticable. The current rendered footing impossible, so all the work
had to be done from above. Wet wood gripped the long saws vice-like,
so that a man's utmost strength could scarcely budge them. The water
deadened the force of axe-blows. Nevertheless, with the sure persistence
of the riverman, they held to it. Orde, watching them a few moments,
satisfied himself that they would succeed, and so departed up river to
take charge of the rear.

This crew he found working busily among some overflowed woods. They
were herding the laggards of the flock. The subsidence of the water
consequent upon the opening of the sluice-gate had left stranded and in
shallows many hundreds of the logs. These the men sometimes, waist deep
in the icy water, owing to the extreme in