Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1883 — AMONG THE REDWOODS. [ARTICLE]

AMONG THE REDWOODS.

BY BERT L. THOMPSON.

It was up in the country of the r< d woods, that stupendous growth which has won a world-wide renown. Who ba not heard of the man who built his house and barn and fenced in a two-acre lot from the product of one gigantic tree, o the schooner filled with shinglee made from another, of the mile of railway ties furnished by a third? The fame of that unexampled paradise of lumbermen had brought Bryce Renfrew all thte way from Maine to invest in the business, with a partner who had more capital but less practical knowledge of its requirements. They had procured a site for their mill at the mouth of one of those shallow,turbulent Jlittle rivers which pieroe the rocky coast at frequent intervals, and were doing well until one Jules Oiaycroft started a rival mill within a few miles of them. Craycroft had not chosen a water course for his site, and at first thought it would appear that he was placed at a disadvantage, but he kept his teams at work drawing in the logs during the dry season, when the lumber droghers could drop anchor in comparative safety under the bluff and while Renfrew <t Hayden’s will 'stood idle, while their legs accumulated, and they waited for the rise necessary to float them down the shallow ■stream, Craycroft was securing the orders which they had hoped to obtain. But ft last the long drought gave promise of breaking up. A leaden-gray sky spread over the forest. There had been rain up in the mountains already, and the river had swollen over the rooky points of its bed, and rushed in a frothing, ooffee-colored current to the sea. All was life and excitement at the log ing camp, but in the midst of the cheerful bustle came one of the frequent accidents which attend the adventurous life of the lumberman.

An axe glanced, flew from its haft, and buried itself in the shoulder of one of the choppers, who went down under the blow, with the red blood spurting from the ugly wound. “It’s all up with me, I reckon,” he said, as his companions gathered about him- “I—l wish, though, that death had druv the stake fair. It’s as hard on a tree to be held on a strain jest by a few fibers what’s bound to give way soon.” “Not when holding on will bring you back to your feet again,* said Renfrew, who had been applying a rude compress to the wpund. You’ll drive many a stake yet, Neff. Keep up your heart, man. It may take s better surgeon than I am tc pull you through, but you shan’t die for want of him. I'm off for the doctor boys; see that the work goes on, will .jour They promise, readily. It was a magnanimous act for “the boss” to leave his duties What critical time, and they were , determined that he should not be loser by tit

Half an hour later, Renfrew was riding at break neck speed, over the trail to the coast It brought him into sight of the river more than once, and his pulse thrilled to see the current charged with the floating logs which the men had been launching all that morning. Another turn, however, brought an unwelcome sight to bis gaze. The logs had gorged, and the twisting channel was piled high with the blockaded freignt With an exclamation of blank disappointment, Renfrew reined in his horoe. Just below him the river narrcwed to a mere pass between the rocky walls, and m this passage swung and twisted the key log of the jam. It looked ®s if an effort might turn it lose, and release tbe timbers which were held above.

He sprang from his horse, scrambled down the bank, and made his way out over the bumping logs, to the point he had in view. He had picked up a pole which he used as a pry, but it took only a few minutes’ work to assure him that the key-log was much more securely fastened than he had at first supposed. The mass, of timber behind was spread out in the shape of a triangle, while it was caught in the apex, and held there as if in the jaws of a vice. His utmost efforts failed to release it, and he was forced to reliqnuish the trial at last Dropping the pole, he stood up-, right, wiping the perspiration from his face, when a rush and a roar, which had been dimly apparent to him, broke with renewed force upon his ear. He looked up expecting to see the tree tops writhing in a strong wind, but they were almost preternaturally still. The clouds had gathered in a thick, black mass overhead, but the breathlessness which precedes the storm was unbroken. He knew then what was coming, and turned to face it, dropping down upon the key-log and clasping it with his arms —nona too soon.

A wall of water, which filled the channel from side to side, and towered high above him, swept down upon the gorge, and broke upon the mass of wedged timber, which was lifted and thrown forward by its resistless force. Renfrew came up from the sudden plunge, still clinging to his log, with the grating and grinding and bumping of the other logs sounding horribly in his ears—came up to find himself afloat o» that sudden flood. At the same moment a folk of lightning darted down and played luridly over the landscape, and when it was withdrawn, the rain burst forth, the thunder pealed, the now seething torrent was lashed to madder fury by he s hrieking gusts.

Bryce was chilled to the bone. He was in constant danger of being crushed against the rocky walls or between the floating logs; in constant danger of losing his hold when his particular log rolled, as it did more than once, to submerge him in the stream. How he managed to cling fast, how he was bom onward at race horse speed, how he found himself presently in a wider portion of the stream, and began to collect his disturbed senses, was ever afterward like a painful dream. He could do nothing but cling fast to his ark of refuge. The river was filled with tossing debris, and. an indifferent swimmer at the best, it would have been sheer madness for him to have left the log and attempted a landing, His only hope lay in being able to leave it when he approached the stiller water of the basin beside the mill

He was nearing it rapidly now. Hayden, who was at the mill, ought to be there with one or two men armed with hooks fixed at the end of long poles, ready to seize upon and draw cut the logs from the fierce current, which otherwise must bear him on over the dam. Ordinarily, the force of the stream was not sufficient to carry them beyond the break water, which protected the basin, but the present flood would over-ride that obstruction and sweep everything before it out to sea. Surely, Hayden would be warned by it in time to guard against their inevitable loss. There he was, when the basin came in eightflperched upon a flotilla of logs—doing what?

Bryce raised himself, and strained his eyes through the gloom, as something Rinißter in the actions of the crouched figure struck him. “Helloa!" he shouted. “Grapple on here, Hayden—hook on, I say!” The figure straightened, turned. It was not Hayden. Like a flash, Bryce recognized one of Oraycroffs myrmidons a Pike, who had annoyed them before this by lounging about the mill, and realized the enormity of the act in which the fellow had been engaged. “Spiking our logs,” he breathed, and threw himself forward, to be caught by the irresistable current and borne back, tcssedand buffeted, dashed hither and thither, until, with a desperate effort, he succeeded in regaming the log,as it hung for an instant above the brink of the chute by which the lumber was passed over the dam. In that instant he took in the scene

the mill seeming silent and deserted, the Pitre still standing in his startled attitude garing after him, the wild, downward rush of the water until it broke in a track of white foam, and was lost in the rough waves of the < eear. Then he was in'the midst of the rush and i oar and down-bearing weight of water. There was a taste of salt brine in his month when he came up at last. He had been borne over the chute, through the surge, and out upon the sea, lashed just now by one of the sudden storms which make that rugged coast a terror. Fortunately*, it was already beginning to abate. More deed than alive, bruised and beaten, and chilled to the very mir row, Bryce Renfrew clung to the log which had saved him, and was washed toward greater danger than he had met yet. Sudden, impenetrable darkness succeeded to the gloomy pall of the storm. He had been swept into one of the numerous caves which line that wave-eaten Western coast ’As he realized what had befallen him, he felt the log graze against the unseen rocks that surrounded him. He threw up his hand and it touched against the wall above. The tide was rising, too. It was only ' a question of time until his brains would be dashed out against the rocks or he should be drowned like a rat in its hole. Lying prone, too weak to struggle against inevitable fate, with the waves washing his very face, something like a star shone out in the darkness overhead. It was there one instant; the next it had twinkled out and theie was a splash in the water at his side.

He put out his hand, and a snaky coil slid over it He grasped it, and found — a rope. It was a work of minutes, in his benumbed condition, to fasten it about his waist; but a feeble jerk at last testified to those wailing above that their quest had not been in vain. He was drawn u”> through a hole in the rocks, and staggered when he found his feet. “Craycroft’s men have spiked our logs and we want a surgeon at the camp,” he managed to gasp, beforp sea and sky, and brown faces bending over him, were lost in the blank of utter unconsciousness. It was long before he knew how he had been saved. He had been seen bv the lookout of a lumber drogher which was anchored beneath the bluff, as the log, with its human freight, was whirled by and swallowed up by the current which bore in under the clifi. It was impossible to follow there with a boat, so the captain had landed a couple of the crew to give the alarm, and extend what aid they might from the shore.

And meanwhile, Hayden, growing impatient when the logs failed to appear with the rise, had set out up stream to discover the cause of the delay, and found the riderless horse of his partner, which was making straight for the mill. 3e hastened back, and set the two hands, who were playing euchre in their bachelor’s shanty, to watching the river —thus effectually putting a stop to the Pikes’ opportunity for mischief—and himself fell in with the sailors who were searching the cliffs. The logs came in with a rush when they began to.appear. Renfrew & Hayden dropped two prices with whicu Crayoroft, with his additional expenses, dared not compete, and it was not long before they had the field to themselves. Neff survived his accident under the efficient, though delayed, attendance of the surgeon, only to be killed by the falling branch of a tree a few months afterward. Such is life in the redwood forests.