she gave them food, and partly because she was sparkling and pretty and wore
pink dresses that caught their dull eyes.


The afternoon proved a lively one. In the first place, one of the younger men
slipped into the water between two logs, part of a lot chained together
waiting to be let out of the boom. The weight of the mass higher up and the
force of the current wedged him in rather tightly, and when he had been
"pried" out he declared that he felt like an apple after it had been squeezed
in the cider-mill, so he drove home, and Rufus Waterman took his place.

Two hours' hard work followed this incident, and at the end of that time the
"bung" that reached from the shore to Waterman's Ledge (the rock where Pretty
Quick met his fate) was broken up, and the logs that composed it were started
down-river. There remained now only the great side jam at Gray Rock. This had
been allowed to grow, gathering logs as they drifted past, thus making higher
water and a stronger current on the other side of the rock, and allowing an
easier passage for the logs at that point.

All was excitement now, for, this particular piece of work accomplished, the
boom above the falls would be "turned out," and the river would once more be
clear and clean at the Edgewood bridge.

Small boys, perching on the rocks with their heels hanging, hands and mouths
full of red Astrakhan apples, cheered their favorites to the echo, while the
drivers shouted to one another and watched the signs and signals of the boss,
who could communicate with them only in that way, so great was the roar of the
water.

The jam refused to yield to ordinary measures. It was a difficult problem, for