day or two," said the cook with entire indifference,
when Bob inquired of him.

That evening, however, four or five of the men disappeared, and did not
return. Such was the effect of an evil example on the part of the
foreman. Larsen took charge. In almost unbroken series the logs shot
through the sluiceways into the river below, where they were received by
the jam crew and started on the next stage of their long journey to the
mills. In a day the dam was passed. One of the younger men rode the last
log through the sluiceway, standing upright as it darted down the chute
into the eddy below. The crowd of townspeople cheered. The boy waved his
hat and birled the log until the spray flew.

But hardly was camp pitched two miles below town when one of the jam
crew came upstream to report a difficulty. Larsen at once made ready to
accompany him down the river trail, and Bob, out of curiosity, went
along, too.

"It's mossbacks," the messenger explained, "and them deadheads we been
carrying along. They've rigged up a little sawmill down there, where
they're cutting what the farmers haul in to 'em. And then, besides,
they've planted a bunch of piles right out in the middle of the stream
and boomed in their side, and they're out there with pike-poles, nailin'
onto every stick of deadhead that comes along."

"Well, that's all right," said Larsen. "I guess they got a right to them
as long as we ain't marked them."

"They can have their deadheads," agreed the riverman, "but their piles
have jammed our drive and hung her."

"We'll break the jam," said Larsen.

Arrived at the scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him with great
interest. The jam was apparently locked hard and fast against a clump of
piles driven about in the centre of the stream. These had evidently been
planted as the extreme outwork of a long shunting boom. Men working
there could shunt into the sawmill enclosure that portion of the drive
to which they could lay claim. The remainder could proceed down the open
channel to the left. That was the theory. Unfortunately, this division
of the river's width so congested matters that the whole drive had hung.

The jam crew were at work, but even Bob's unpractised eye saw that their
task was stupendous. Even should they succeed in loosening the breast,
there could be no reason to suppose the performance would not have to be
repeated over and over again as the close-ranked drive came against the
obstacle.

Larsen t