The going out of the jam drained the water from the lower floors of
the mill; the upper stories and the grain were still safe.
By evening the sluice-gate had been roughly provided with pole
guides down which to slide to the bed of the river. The following
morning saw the work going on as methodically as ever. During the
night a very good head of water had gathered behind the lowered
gate. The rear crew brought down the afterguard of logs to the
pond. The sluicers with their long pike-poles thrust the logs into
the chute. The jam crew, scattered for many miles along the lower
stretches, kept the drive going; running out over the surface of the
river like water-bugs to thrust apart logs threatening to lock;
leaning for hours on the shafts of their peavies watching
contemplatively the orderly ranks as they drifted by, sleepy, on the
bosom of the river; occasionally gathering, as the filling of the
river gave warning, to break a jam. By the end of the second day
the pond was clear, and as Charlie's wanigan was drifting toward the
chute, the first of Johnson's drive floated into the head of the
pond.
V
Charlie's wanigan, in case you do not happen to know what such a
thing may be, was a scow about twenty feet long by ten wide.
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