to rest. Such eddies and obstructions, however, drew a constant
toll from the ranks of the free-moving logs, so that always the
volume of timbers floating with the current diminished, and always
the number of logs caught and stranded along the sides of the river
increased. To restore these to the faster water was the especial
province of the last and most expert crew--the rear.

Orde discovered about noon that the jam crew was having its
troubles. Immediately below Reed's dam ran a long chute strewn with
boulders, which was alternately a shallow or a stretch of white-
water according as the stream rose or fell. Ordinarily the logs
were flushed over this declivity by opening the gate, behind which a
head of water had been accumulated. Now, however, the efficiency of
the gate had been destroyed. Orde early discovered that he was
likely to have trouble in preventing the logs rushing through the
chute from grounding into a bad jam on the rapids below.

For a time the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In
the centre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier.
Along the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own
momentum into places so shallow as to discourage any hope of
refloating them unless by main strength. As the sluicing of the
nine or ten million feet that constituted this particular drive went
forward, the situation rapidly became worse.

"Tom, we've got to get flood-water unless we want to run into an
awful job there," said Orde to the foreman. "I wonder if we can't
drop that gate 'way down to get something for a head."

The two men examined the chute and the sluice-gate attentively for