Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1879 — A California Log-slide. [ARTICLE]

A California Log-slide.

••od Company, Number Two. Around the foot of a steep slope, where a spur of the mountains thrusts its shouldei into the water, the road runs its winding way. Following this the traveler comes at last to a peaceful spot, whose quiet would throw the most timorous soul into reverie. Death lurks in ambush here, however, and where there shoul# be black flags, yellow flags, red lanterns, skulls, ana cross-bones hi abundance there is n omen of his distinguished and pall

presence other than a w»im warnin* marked on a strip of board and tacked to a stump, which is hidden so deep in the evergreens that none but the most vigilant of observers would notice it. It is the premonitory sigin&l: “Look out for logs!” Reading this indefinite hint, the traveler might feel a languid curiosity as to what it meant, but he would hardly construe it as significant of peril Perchance by day he would look around for logs beautiful with lichen, or by night for logs beami&g with “fox-fire,” but as for apprehension of danger, that were absurd, for of ail inanimate objects the log, emblem of ail that is inert and stupid, has always been considered most free from inimical designs upon man. A hundred feet farther, however, and the full force of this caution comes home to him. A hundred feet farther and the road is cut by a line from which his intelligent horse shrinks as he would from a serpent across his Eath. It is a tram-way or chute of eavy timbers, sunk in the ground, reaching from the crest of the hill to the edge of the water. y It is hollow, like a trougl , and in places its concave surface is hushed with strips of iron shining with a polish which ceuld come from only the most violent friction. It is a “log slide,” down which the trunk of a large tree, peeled of its bark to make it slippery, is coming with all the force of a ship from the stocks. Such a battering-ram would send into dust the strongest wall that was ever made, and would nring utter annihilation to the passing traveler so unlucky as to be astride of the track at this critical moment. A cloud of splinters, smoke, and dust marks the wake of its metoric flight, which lasts but the length of a suspended breath, from the launch at the summit to its final leap from the high trestle-work to the water beneath, where it strikes with a sharp clap and dashes the white spray into a cloud which washes the highest tree tops. Then, tardy as the thunder after the lightning’s flash, there comes a yell of warning from the men assembled at the head of this slide, who are responsible for all of this tumult and terror. To the jocular nature of the men of Lake Tahoe every log launched and every wayfarer scared are but items of their entertainment, for which, however, under the name of work, they receive liberal wages. 1