CHAPTER IX
That was the sixth of April.
On the morning of the seventh Milt Goddard and Helen Foraker were covering the country by car and telephone for teams and men. The slide which dragged logs by endless chain from river to mill was overhauled, the blacksmith in Pancake was at work early making a quantity of chain dogs, and a wagonload of supplies went into White's abandoned camps, the nearest shelter to the ravine in which the logs had been abandoned.
That night, Black Joe dragged out his turkey and brought to light his aged Grand Rapids driving boots, unused but carefully preserved these many years. He greased them again and sharpened the corks, handling the foot gear with an odd excitement. The next morning he was on the stream early with dynamite, wire and his buzzer, and the heavy detonations of the explosive punctuated the day as he tore from their anchorage those snags which had impeded nothing but driftwood for a decade or more.
Three weeks later, for there were delays, the first raft, old Joe ankle-deep but top-side on the sluggish maple, dogged to cedar, swung to a stop against the boom at the mill and began crawling one by one, up to the waiting band-saw.
On a morning in mid-May, Luke Taylor sat in the library of his Detroit home, dictating to Philip Rowe.
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