Above the fall, covering the placid surface of the river,
thousands of logs lay quietly "in boom" until the "turning out"
process, on the last day of the drive, should release them and
give them their chance of display, their brief moment of
notoriety, their opportunity of interesting, amusing, exciting,
and exasperating the onlookers by their antics.

Heaps of logs had been cast up on the rocks below the dam, where
they lay in hopeless confusion, adding nothing, however, to the
problem of the moment, for they too bided their time. If they
had possessed wisdom, discretion, and caution, they might have
slipped gracefully over the falls and, steering clear of the
hidden ledges (about which it would seem they must have heard
whispers from the old pine trees along the river), have kept a
straight course and reached their destination without costing the
Edgewood Lumber Company a small fortune. Or, if they had
inclined toward a jolly and adventurous career, they could have
joined one of the various jams or "bungs," stimulated by the
thought that any one of them might be a key-log, holding for a
time the entire mass in its despotic power. But they had been
stranded early in the game, and, after lying high and dry for
weeks, would be picked off one by one and sent down-stream.

In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurry at the foot
of the falls, one enormous peeled log wallowed up and down like a
huge rhinoceros, greatly pleasing the children by its clumsy
cavortings. Some conflict of opposing forces kept it ever in
motion, yet never set it free. Below the bridge were always the
real battle-grounds, the scenes of the first and the fiercest