King Spruce, A Novel

When the trees have been cut and trimmed in the winter's work in the woods the logs are hauled in great loads to be piled at "landing-places" on the frozen streams, so that the spring floods will move them. Most of the streams have a succession of dams. On the spring drive the logs are floated to the dams, and then the gates are raised and the logs are "sluiced" through with a head of water behind them to carry them down-stream. Thus the drive is lifted along in sections from one dam to another. It will be seen that Pulaski D. Britt's series of dams on Jerusalem constituted a valuable holding, and enabled him to control the water and leave the logs of rivals stranded if he wished. The collection of water and quick work in "sluicing" are most important, for the streams give down only about so much water in the spring.

When a load of logs is suddenly set free from the cable holding it back on a steep descent, as in Chapter XXVI., it is said to be "sluiced."

When there is a jam of entangled logs as they are swept down-stream, if it is impossible to find and pry loose the "key-log," it is sometimes necessary to blow up the restraining logs with dynamite.

When the floating logs are caught upon rocks, and the men are prying them loose, they are said to be "carding" the ledges.

A "jill-poke," a pet aversion of drivers, is a log with one end lodged on the bank and the other thrust out into the stream.

The "cant-dog" is illustrated on the cover of the book.

The "peavy" is the Maine name for a slightly different variety of "cant-dog," which takes its title from its maker in Old Town.

The "pick-pole" is an ashen pole ten to twelve feet long, shod with an iron point with a screw-tip, which enables a driver to pull a log towards him or to push it away.

KING SPRUCE

CHAPTER I

UP IN "CASTLE CUT 'EM"

"Oh, the road to 'Castle Cut 'Em' is mostly all uphill. You can dance along all cheerful to the sing-song of a mill; King Cole he wanted fiddles, and so does old King Spruce, But it's only gashin'-fiddles that he finds of any use.

"Oh, come along, good lumbermen, oh, come along I say! Come up to 'Castle Cut 'Em,' and pull your wads and pay. King Cole he liked his bitters, and so does old King Spruce, But the only kind he hankers for is old spondulix-juice."

--From song by Larry Gorman, "Woods Poet."

The young man on his way to "Castle Cut 'Em" was a clean-cut picture of self-reliant youth. But he was not walking as one who goes to a welcome task. He saw two men ahead of him who walked with as little display of eagerness; men whose shoulders were stooped and whose hands swung listlessly as do hands that are astonished at finding themselves idle.

A row of mills that squatted along the bank of the canal sent after them a medley of howls from band-saws and circulars. The young man, with the memory of his college classics sufficiently fresh to make him fanciful, found suggestion of chained monsters in the aspect of those shrieking mills, with slip-openings like huge mouths.

That same imagery invested the big building on the hill with attributes that were not reassuring. But he went on up the street in the sunshine, his eyes on the broad backs of the plodders ahead.

King Spruce was in official session.

Men who were big, men who were brawny, yet meek and apologetic, were daily climbing the hill or waiting in the big building to have word with the Honorable John Davis Barrett, who was King Spruce's high chamberlain. Dwight Wade found half a dozen ahead of him when he came into the general office. They sat, balancing their hats on their knees, and each face wore the anxious expectancy that characterized those who waited to see John Barrett.