The nights in camp were full of new sights and sounds. A rasping sound as of something gnawing off the very foundations of the house was silenced by the gun of the householder. Next morning we heard it was "nawthin' but a couple o' porkypines that come around chawin' on the sills." The housewife bewailed the invasion of her turnip patch by wild deer. A black bear had recently contested the claims of berry pickers in one of the upland spaces cleared of timber.
The logs are piled in order down on the skidways by men who scamper over them like ants, teasing them into parallel position, fitting them into solid phalanx, with peavy and cant hook—difficult and dangerous tools to the learner, but wonder fully effective when mastered.
From early morning till two o'clock the gang is loading cars from the skids. Three long logs rest on two trucks set far enough apart to support the two ends of the load, which are solidly chained to prevent any slipping. Short logs are fitted in pyra midal piles on regular cars. They usually bind each other, the upper logs fitting into the troughs between the lower ones. If the fit does not suffice, a chain binds them into a solid unit.
A warning whistle after dinner gave notice that in an hour the train started for the valley. We found the cars all full, and I looked inquiringly into the engineer's little tubby. It had scarcely room for himself and various boxes and bundles. "On top of the logs?" It seemed incredible. But there were women with berry baskets—and babies—perched on those wooden pinnacles. There is no other way of getting down to the settle ment, not even a trail.
It wasn't bad at all. We perched on a round log terrace and leaned luxuriously back against another which formed the key stone of the arch of the load. Berry pickers gathered in, the manager himself joined us, introducing the Catholic priest, who had spent the day among his isolated parishioners. A jovial, if scattered, company of passengers waved a farewell to the camp.
The long logs went first, making the curves safely, though their chains groaned. A man with a peavy rode erect upon them, watching anxiously for trouble. It was a silly short car behind that ran one wheel off the track over a boggy spot where the track sagged. The passengers kept their seats, even on that
car. A short length of rail was laid under the offending wheels, the little engine at the upper end of the train pulled suddenly and the wheel got back to the rail. There was just time to pick a bunch of scarlet hobble berries which the kindly genius of the short rail heard me crave; then the descent began again, the little engine halting violently to overcome and to gauge properly the mighty force of gravitation, in whose power we were hurrying to the valley. And we drew in alongside the mill slough while the autumnal sun still shone through the hemlocks on the western hill.
There was one stop at a siding to attach a car piled high and solid with sheets of dry hemlock bark, and to add a number of extra passengers from the woods and berry patches. This hemlock furnishes a valuable side line to the main lumbering business. The wood is not highly rated, but the bark is valuable for tanning. All through the summer, work is active among the hemlocks. The bark slips until September, and a gang of peelers works through the growing season. Then it disbands. There is only the bark to market, and the logs to get to the mills.
The bark is checked into uniform sheets four feet long before it is stripped from the fresh-cut log. It is stacked and loaded on cars by the stripper, who gets $2 per cord for his work. The tanneries pay $10 or more per cord for it. The force of 15o men get out io,000 cords of bark in a summer.
The hemlock logs, too slippery for handling by men, are loaded on cars by machinery. A big iron thumb and finger—. a derrick—lifts them and places them on the cars. They are sawed into building timbers of the cheaper sorts, and the small stuff goes to the shingle mill. Most of the bark is consumed by a tannery in the neighbourhood. Green hides from the Argentine Republic are shipped to this establishment, which does also a great business with Western hides.
It is the proud boast of the owners that in their mills there is no waste. It is indeed remarkable how little good pine goes out over the dam to feed the ever-burning slab pile on the other side of the river. The course of one log is easily followed in the great open mill.