In the meantime the rear was "sacking" its way as fast as possible,
moving camp with the wanigan whenever necessary, working very hard
and very cold and very long. In its work, however, beyond the
breaking of the rollways, was little of the spectacular.
Orde, after the rear was well started, patrolled the length of the
drive in his light buckboard. He had a first-class team of young
horses--high-spirited, somewhat fractious, but capable on a pinch of
their hundred miles in a day. He handled them well over the rough
corduroys and swamp roads. From jam to rear and back again he
travelled, pausing on the river banks to converse earnestly with one
of the foremen, surveying the situation with the bird's-eye view of
the general. At times he remained at one camp for several days
watching the trend of the work. The improvements made during the
preceding summer gave him the greatest satisfaction, especially the
apron at the falls.
"We'd have had a dozen bad jams here before now with all these logs
in the river," said he to Tim Nolan, who was in charge of that beat.
"And as it is," said Tim, "we've had but the one little wing jam."
The piers to define the channel along certain shallows also saved
the rear crew much labour in the matter of stranded logs.
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