CHAPTER SEVEN

A Birling Match

In spite of the fact that Jonas Driscoll kept insisting that all the glamour had gone out of logging, Sandy and the boys found the business of cutting timber fascinating. The husky lumberjacks were amazingly thorough and efficient. Jonas pointed out one massive pine, at least three feet in diameter, that seemed to be the object of heated discussion among the sawyer gang. Long strings with leaded weights dangling at the ends were fixed on the trunk at various heights to determine the tree’s angle to the ground.

“Them plumb lines help ’em figure out which way that old feller would fall naturally,” Jonas explained. “Then they got to take the wind into account and the distribution of the foliage, plus a few other things. After that the gang boss decides how to make it fall where he wants it to.”

“What difference does it make where it falls?” Jerry asked.

“Well,” Jonas drawled, “a big feller like that could squash a whole crew if it fell wrong, for one thing. Or it could end up leaning against another tree, which is kind of messy.” He pointed out a stand of seedlings to the left of the big tree. “Or it could break up a lot of those babies; that’d be cheating your grandchildren out of some fine timber. A good crew boss can drop a tree smack on a little wooden stake and hammer it into the ground.”

Quiz looked impressed. “I’d say your crew bosses must have a thorough knowledge of mathematics to be able to predict the angle of fall so accurately.”

Jonas scratched his bald head. “Well, I don’t know, son. I suppose quite a few of the boys these days have book learnin’. ’Course, in my day, the way you made crew boss was to lick the old boss.”

“Did anybody ever lick you, Mr. Driscoll?” Sandy asked.

The old man drew back his lips, displaying two rows of broken teeth. “A couple of times, as you can see.”

They walked closer to the big pine tree as two muscular sawyers started to make the undercut that would determine the direction the tree would fall. The chips flew as their double-edged axes flashed in the sunlight, and a wedge widened rapidly in the side of the trunk. Their strokes were rhythmic and effortless. Jonas called their attention to the smoothness of the undercut.

“Good men,” he said. “The scarf is as clean as if it was cut by a saw.”

When the undercut was completed to the crew chief’s satisfaction, two other men went to work with a wicked-looking two-handled saw with a curved blade.

“We better mosey back to the sidelines,” Jonas told them. “Mistakes do happen.”

From a safe distance they watched until, at last, the tree began to tremble throughout its length like a live thing. Before the saw was completely through the trunk, there was a grinding, crackling noise and the crown swayed and dipped. Suddenly there was a sharp report that Sandy first mistook for an explosion.

“She’s falling!” Jonas said.

“_Tim-m-ber!_” the crew boss sang out at the top of his lungs as the great tree toppled slowly and majestically. It landed with a thunderous crash that blurred Sandy’s vision and jarred his teeth. And then, for a full minute, it lay there, writhing and groaning like some prehistoric monster in the throes of death.

The boys were awed.

“I never saw anything like it,” Jerry whispered.

“It sort of gives you a lump in your throat,” Quiz said, his voice touched with reverence. “That tree was probably hundreds of years old. Now it’s gone.”

Jonas dropped one hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Not really. That old tree will help build a lot of fine houses and furnish ’em too. Studding, shingles, chairs, tables, cabinets, the works.”

Immediately, another crew with light power saws began cleaning the limbs off the trunk.

“Soon as she’s limbed,” Jonas explained, “they’ll cut up the trunk into manageable lengths and the dozers and cranes will stack ’em in cold decks.” He indicated a neat pile of logs at one side of the road. “In the old days we had to let them sit here until winter when the roads were iced over, so they’d slide easy behind the horses. Today, we use trailer trucks.”

“Makes it a lot easier on everybody, doesn’t it, Jonas,” Russ Steele said. “Now, tell the truth, the ‘good old days’ weren’t really so good, were they?”

The old man grinned sheepishly. “Well—we got the job done just the same,” he said lamely.

Tractors, with thresher-like attachments, moved back and forth along the length of the felled tree, gathering up the lopped-off branches and chewing them up into smaller pieces. These scraps were later heaped up into mounds.

“Come winter, we’ll burn a lot of that slash and spread the ashes around for fertilizer,” Jonas explained.

“Must be quite a fire hazard in this weather,” Russ Steele said.

The foreman’s mouth tightened. “This heat spell has everybody on edge. It’s getting so I wake up every half hour at night, thinking I smell smoke. We been posting fire watches out here on our own. Them poor rangers got their hands full as it is. You really picked a bad time to go camping, Russ. You going back to Red Lake from here?”

Russ smiled evasively. “Oh, I don’t know. We thought we might go up to the border and watch your boys run some of these logs down the big river.”

Jonas shook his head. “Water level’s too low. You boys want to see a gen-u-wine logging drive, come back up here next spring.”

Sandy was disappointed. “I sure hoped to see that. Do lumberjacks really ride on top of the logs the way you see it in the movies?”

Jonas raised an eyebrow. “I’ll say they do, son. Why a good river hog can ride a fresh pine log through the mill tail as pretty as a Hawaiian on a surfboard. Say, maybe we can put on a bit of a show for you at that. C’mon.”

He led them down the slope toward a small pond nestling in the valley. On the way, he called to two loggers stacking logs.

“Pete! Charley! Want to show off your birling for our visitors?”

Wearing big grins, the two husky men fell in behind them.

“Pete and Charley are the camp champs,” Jonas explained.

“What’s birling?” Quiz asked.

“A game the old-timers dreamed up to pass the time on long drives. Two men set themselves on opposite ends of a log and then they try to shake each other off into the drink.”

“Oh, boy!” Jerry said. “That sounds like fun.”

“It is fun,” Jonas agreed. “But it’s also become quite a skillful sport. Wait till you see these boys go at it.”

When they reached the pond, Pete and Charley carefully chose a log about two feet in diameter and twelve feet long from a pile nearby and rolled it into the water. Then they stepped onto opposite ends of the log and Jonas shoved it into the middle of the pond with a long pole. The two big men, hobnailed boots planted firmly in the bark, rode the bobbing log like cats, their thumbs hooked nonchalantly in their belts.

“Looks easy,” Jerry said.

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Quiz.

At a signal from Jonas, the contest began. Pete took the offensive at once. Back-pedaling with short, mincing steps, he sent the log rolling over and over in the water. Faster and faster his feet moved until the log was a spinning blur beneath them. But Charley jogged effortlessly with the spin, never once removing his thumbs from under his belt.

“He must be part fly,” Sandy murmured admiringly.

Suddenly, Pete braked the log with his spikes. Charley hung on nimbly, though he did have to extend his arms for balance. Pete studied his opponent briefly, then tried another approach. Facing the other man, he spread his feet, spikes dug deep into the soft bark. Throwing his weight to the right, he rolled the log to that side, then jerked it back sharply in the opposite direction. Back and forth, back and forth, he went, stirring up waves in the little pond. Charley just crouched low and rolled with the log.

Finally, Pete abandoned this method too, and began to jump up and down on his end of the log until it was lurching up and down in the water like a seesaw. Once Charley’s boot slipped as the log rolled unexpectedly, but he recovered himself neatly.

“I’ve never seen such a display of balance and coordination,” Russ said.

“There’s a hundred tricks,” Jonas told him. “Every birler has his own pet twists and turns and stops. Why I’ve seen my old man spend hours studying a log before a big match.”

“What for?” Sandy said. “They all look pretty much the same to me.”

“Logs are as different as fingerprints. Pine logs are lighter than spruce, for example, and roll much faster. Cedar logs ride higher in the water. Thin bark is a different proposition than thick spongy bark—” He broke off as the two birlers both sent the log spinning madly in the water. “Here now, watch old Charley go to town.”

Faster and faster the log spun; then with a display of skill that set Jonas to clapping his hands, Charley braked the spin and sent the log twirling in the opposite direction before poor Pete could shift his feet. He flipped over backward into the pond with a loud splash.

The boys joined in the round of applause for Charley, as Pete surfaced and good-naturedly shoved the log in to shore, so the winner wouldn’t get his feet wet.

“I’m out of practice,” Pete puffed, as he waded in, dripping wet.

“No excuses,” Jonas laughed. “Anyway, that saves you taking a bath tonight.”

He turned to Jerry. “Still think it’s easy, young fellow?”

“Well-l-l,” Jerry drawled, “I think with a little practice I could do it.”

“No time like the present,” Jonas declared. “How about it, Sandy? You game to take your pal on?”

Sandy grinned. “Sure thing. I don’t care if I do fall in. It’s so darned hot.”

Jonas brought the log in closer to the bank and braced it with his pole. “Okay, boys, climb aboard.”

Sandy bowed with a flourish to the dark-haired boy. “After you, my dear Alphonse.”

Stepping out on the log as cautiously as a tightrope walker on the high wire, Jerry planted his feet firmly, crouching very low.

“Why don’t you sit down and straddle it,” Quiz heckled him.

“No remarks from the gallery,” Jerry grunted. “I’m just getting the feel of it.”

Sandy took his place a trifle more confidently, and Jonas shoved the log into the middle of the pond. Jerry tottered and flailed his arms wildly in the air as the log started to roll beneath him.

“Hey, cut that out! We didn’t get the signal to start yet,” he protested to Sandy.

“I’m not doing a thing.” Sandy was concentrating on keeping his feet moving rhythmically with the motion of the log. In spite of his efforts to slow it down, it kept picking up momentum, largely because of Jerry’s frenzied footwork.

On shore, Quiz, Russ Steele and the loggers were doubled up with laughter. Jonas gasped, “He looks like a clown I saw at a circus running on a treadmill with a dog hanging onto the seat of his pants.”

The thought was too much for Sandy. Choking hysterically, he went headfirst into the pond. But still Jerry’s mad marathon went on. “How do you stop this thing?” he shouted.

“Just turn off your ignition,” Charley joked.

The tears were rolling down Pete’s face. “I ain’t seen a birler like that boy in all my days. He’d be a sensation at the fall festival.”

“No use,” Jerry screamed desperately. “I’m going to bail out before it’s too late.” Holding his nose he ran off the end of the log into thin air. His legs were still driving like pistons as the water closed over him.

When the boys waded ashore, Jerry grinned sheepishly at the loggers. “I was doing great till my accelerator got stuck.”

Jonas patted him on the back. “You’re all right, Jerry. Best show I’ve seen all year.”

Walking up the hill, Jonas asked Russ, “How long will you be with us?”

“Oh, I guess we’ll be heading back to Red Lake tomorrow morning.”

“Better follow the river south as far as you can,” Jonas cautioned him. “It wouldn’t do to get caught in the deep woods if a fire gets started.”

By this time the sun had sunk below the trees, and the loggers were boarding the trucks for the ride back to camp. Russ and Quiz rode back with Jonas in the cab of the lead truck, while Sandy and Jerry piled in the one behind it.

“Do you fellows live in the woods all year?” Sandy asked the driver.

“Most of us single men do,” the driver told him. “It saves board money living in the company barracks and eating three squares in the mess hall. A few of the married boys live in town. We got a couple of little towns within a comfortable distance. Some weekends we go in and stay at a rooming house.”

“Don’t you ever get to the big city?” Jerry asked wonderingly.

“Maybe once a year, we go to Duluth.” He began to laugh uproariously. “It usually takes us another year to get over a spree like that.”

Back at camp, Russ Steele spoke earnestly with Jonas Driscoll off to one side. Then he went into the office alone and closed the door behind him. The foreman walked over to where the boys were throwing sticks for the two dogs to fetch and told Sandy that his uncle was making an important phone call.

“He’ll be a while,” he said. “Why don’t you boys come down to my shack and wash up before supper?”

Sandy looked meaningfully at Jerry and Quiz. “You guys go ahead with Jonas. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

As soon as they were out of sight, Sandy went over and sat down on the steps of the office. Prince and Bruce camped at his feet, wagging their tails and pleading with their eyes for more play. Finally Sandy gave in and lobbed a few more sticks for them. After about ten minutes, Russ Steele came out of the office. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he almost stumbled over his nephew.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t see you.”

Sandy nodded sympathetically. “Still no news?”

“Not a trace. It begins to look more and more as if they ditched the bomb over this area. Search teams are working in toward us methodically from both Lake Superior and Manitoba where the plane crashed. We’ll just have to do what we can until reinforcements arrive.”

To the west heat lightning lit up the sky like a monster flash bulb. Sandy shivered as they walked slowly in the direction of the foreman’s cottage. The air seemed to be buzzing with electricity.