advance the fastest; and one experiences a certain
physical thrill in venturing under thirty feet of jammed logs for the
sole purpose of teasing the whole mass to cascade down on one, or of
shooting a rapid while standing upright on a single timber. I believe,
too, it is considered the height of glory to belong to a rear crew.
Still, the water is cold and the hours long, and you have to sleep in a
tent.

It can readily be seen that the progress of the "rear" measures the
progress of the drive. Some few logs in the "jam" may run fifty miles a
day--and often do--but if the sacking has gone slowly at the rear, the
drive may not have gained more than a thousand yards. Therefore Jimmy
stayed at the rear.

Jimmy was a mighty good riverman. Of course he had nerve, and could do
anything with a log and a peavy, and would fight at the drop of a
hat--any "bully boy" would qualify there--but also he had judgment. He
knew how to use the water, how to recognise the key log of jams, where
to place his men--in short, he could get out the logs. Now Jimmy also
knew the river from one end to the other, so he had arranged in his
mind a sort of schedule for the twenty days. Forty-eight hours for the
rollways; a day and a half to the upper rapids; three days into the dam
pond; one day to sluice the drive through the Grand Rapids dam; three
days for the Crossing; and so on. If everything went well, he could do
it, but there must be no hitches in the programme.

Even from this imperfect fragment of the schedule the inexperienced
might imagine Jimmy had allowed an altogether disproportionate time to
cover the mile or so from the rapids to the dam pond. As it turned,
however, he found he had not allowed enough, for at this point the river
was peculiar and very trying.

The backwater of the dam extended up-stream a half mile; then occurred a
rise of four feet, down the slope of which the water whirled and
tumbled, only to spread out over a broad fan of gravel shallows. These
shallows did the business. When the logs had bumped through the
tribulations of the rapids, they seemed to insist obstinately on resting
in the shallows, like a lot of wearied cattle. The rear crew had to wade
in. They heaved and pried and pushed industriously, and at the end of it
had the satisfaction of seeing a single log slide reluctantly into the
current. Sometimes a dozen of them would clamp their peavies on either
side, and by sheer brute force carry the stick to d