By late afternoon, the Namakagon Timber Company drivers were stretched out along the untamed river for fifteen miles. Ingman, Tor, Rusty O’Hara, and Mason Fitch made their way downriver on the large logs, passing under the Omaha Railroad trestle near Cable. As they did, the sound of rushing water mixed with the calls from a flock of northbound Canada geese. Tor looked up.
“Tor, you keep your gol dang eye on the river, Nephew,” shouted Ingman, “and watch that bend ahead. Looks like they’re bunchin’ up.”
“I’ll loosen ’em up, Boss,” yelled Rusty. Using his twelve-foot pike pole for balance, he sprinted downstream across the logs. Before the others could catch him, he broke up the beginnings of a jam.
“Mason, you best hang back here to keep the pine from yammin’ up on this bend,” shouted Ingman over the roar of rushing water.
As the other three worked on downstream, the river narrowed. Banks on both sides rose sharply and a loud roar came from the rapids ahead.
“Best yump off here, fellas,” shouted Ingman. “This next stretch is a man-killer.”
They jumped onto shore and followed the riverbank downstream. Below them, they watched the pine they had been riding on only moments before. The raging current now tossed the large logs as though they were mere twigs. Some flew end over end, smashing into each other and the rocky river bottom. Minutes later, in calmer water, the three drivers stepped onto the logs again.
By nightfall, they reached the Ojibwe village at Pac-wa-wong. Fifteen other Loken camp river pigs sat around a large campfire, hoping to dry off before turning in. They let Ingman, Tor, and Rusty get close to the fire. Of all the men, only O’Hara was dry above the waist.
“I don’t see how you do it, Rusty,” said Tor. “I must've been dunked a dozen times or more. I lost count somewhere below the railroad trestle.”
“Simple, Tor. You gotta be smarter than the log you’re ridin’.”
“Ya, O’Hara, yust you vait,” said Klaus Radlinger. “You’ll get your bath, too. Lord knows you needs one ’fore you reach dem Hayvird dance halls.”
“Don’t mock me, fellas,” smiled Rusty. “I’m the only one here who’s bearin’ dry tobacco.” He filled his pipe and passed his can of Plowboy to the man next to him. Three women from the village brought the men smoked suckers and cornbread for their supper.
“You figure Blackie made it all the way to Hayward before dark set in, Uncle Ingman?” asked Tor.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re walkin’ into town right now. Blackie is a determined fellow when it comes to whisky and women.”
“We’ll catch up with them in the sweet morrow,” said Rusty.
In the crisp, April night air, the Loken lumberjacks sat by the fire, steam rolling off their wool shirts, hats, boots, and britches. It drifted up into the moonlit sky. All the men grew quiet now, thinking about the day’s events and wondering what tomorrow would bring. They all slept soundly that night, their calked boots and socks drying before the coals.
As the eastern sky began to show its first faint glow of daylight, Zeke and Zach Rigby arrived with two other Loken men. They rekindled the fire, put on the large coffee pot, and opened the wannigan sent by Sourdough.
The men filled up on smoked pork, blackjack, and cold beans, grabbed their peaveys and pike poles, and headed for the river. They found it thick with logs floating downstream in the high water. The men stepped out onto the logs and worked their way through the slower reaches of the river, breaking several small jams. Some drivers hung back at sharp bends to keep the pine moving. At a quarter past nine, the logs ahead slowed, then stopped.
“Log-yam ahead’,” shouted Ingman.
The water rushed up and over the logs as they piled into each other. Rusty O’Hara, walking the logs spryly, rounded the next bend to see two men far downstream.
“Ingman,” shouted Rusty back to his boss, “if I ain’t mistaken, that be Blackie and Mike Fremont ahead.”
“They should be far downstream by now. Must be a pretty good yam.”
Tor and Ingman crossed the river, stepping from log to log. They climbed up onto the riverbank, joining Rusty and soon reached the two men at the sharp bend, seven miles upstream from the new Hayward millpond.
“Blackie,” shouted Ingman, “I figured by now you’d be tryin’ to win back your winter’s wages at some poker table.”
“Mornin’, Boss. ’Bout time you got here. We been fightin’ this dang jam all night. Each time we bust her loose she jams up again. I figure it’s that boulder there,” he said, pointing below the logjam. “It must’ve been rolled out here by the rush of water yesterday. No matter what we do, it’s gonna keep jammin’.”
“Can we blast it out of there?” asked Ingman.
“I thought about that. But I lost my rucksack to the river yesterday. I see you still got yours.”
Blackie, Ingman, and the others studied the jam. Klaus cut a ten-foot sapling and trimmed off the branches. Ingman wired two sticks of dynamite to the end, inserted a blasting cap, cut thirty seconds of waterproof fuse, and his men all stepped back. He lit the fuse and jammed the pole under the logs, just behind the boulder, then ran for the woods.
Ingman counted out loud as he ran. “Fourteen Minnesota, fifteen Minnesota, sixteen Minnesota, seventeen Minnesota,” He ducked behind a large maple tree and peered around the trunk at the river. “Keep your heads down, fellas,” he shouted. “Twenty-seven Minnesota, twenty-eight Minnesota, twenty-nine Minnesota—heads down, men.”
Nothing happened.
Seconds lapsed. Still nothing.
“Ingman,” shouted Rusty, “did you remember to light it?” Some of the men stepped out from behind their trees.
Suddenly, the dynamite exploded, echoing down the river valley.
The shock from the blast knocked Lester Moore back over the fallen log he hid behind moments earlier. He did a backwards somersault, landing in shallow, black, backwater muck.
“Must’ve cut your fuse a bit long there, Ingman,” Blackie shouted.
Disgusted, Lester sat up, covered with black mud. “If you don’t mind, Boss, you’d better have Blackie cut your fuse from here on out.”
“Don’t you be worryin’ about it, Lester,” yelled Rusty. “You’ll be washed clean a dozen times ’fore we again reach civilization.” The roar of the rushing water masked Lester’s reply, but the howling laughter of the other drivers carried well up and downstream.
The blast had lifted the boulder onto the bank, but the logjam held fast.
“Let’s loosen her up, boys,” shouted Blackie.
With pike poles and peaveys, they worked the jam, looking for the key to the tangled mass of pine. Ice-cold water sprayed out below, between, and above the logs, making the search difficult and soaking the men.
Upstream, the water was rising fast. Here, more and more logs piled up.
“Stand aside, men,” yelled Blackie above the rush of water. “I think I got ’er figured out.”
The men backed away as Blackie thrust the handle of his peavey between two logs and gave a good pull. The log moved slightly. Then, under the enormous pressure of water upstream, the sixteen-foot log shot out into the air, flipped end for end, and splashed into the pool below. The twenty-foot-high logjam let loose with a thunderous roar and rush of pine and water. Giant logs were hurled, and flipped through the air. Blackie dashed across the logs toward shore but lost his footing on the wet, shifting timber. Caught in the rush of pine and water, he was thrown into the pool with the logs.
The men all raced toward him, but Blackie Jackson immediately disappeared below the churning mass of wood and muddy water.
Hoping to rescue his friend, Rusty risked joining him by running the logs to the opposite bank of the wild and powerful river. The lumberjacks stared helplessly into the violent pool.
Seconds stretched into minutes. Silent now, these great, robust men, these bulls of the woods, now stood motionless—weak and helpless before the furious caldron of ice, w
ater, and wood. No one spoke. The only sound was the roar of the river and the bashing of timber against timber.
Above it all came a shout. “What’s the gol dang holdup, fellas?”
Downstream, peavey in hand, thoroughly drenched and missing his hat, stood Blackie Jackson on the far shore.
“Yackson! For Saint Pete’s sake, we thought the dang devil had ya!”
“Who do you think threw me up on this here riverbank, Boss? I would’ve showed up sooner, but I lost my gol dang peavey and had to go back into the drink for it. A man ain’t worth much on the river without his peavey.”
Throughout the week, the men, now stretched all along the river, guided the great pine logs downstream. By dusk of the fourth day, most of the Loken timber was nearing the new sawmill at the Hayward dam. A. J. Hayward’s mill hands would take it from there.
That evening, those log drivers within walking distance of any Hayward saloon made the trek. Most had their money buttoned into a pocket to prevent it from being lost in the river, but no button would keep their money from disappearing in the saloons, poker rooms, and sporting houses of Hayward. Tonight, like most spring nights, this pinery boomtown was packed with thousands of lumberjacks.
In the light of the rising moon, Tor Loken jumped from log to log, crossing the wide millpond some now called Lake Hayward. Reaching the shore, he climbed the steep bank and followed the trail into town. The around-the-clock clouds of smoke from the sawdust burners led the way. He crossed the railroad yard. Hundreds of empty boxcars lined the sidings, each waiting to be filled with pine lumber.
As Tor walked up the street, music poured out from the many, lively saloons along Iowa Avenue. Men, celebrating the end of the winter cut, filled the taverns now, spilling out onto the boardwalks and muddy streets. Every store was open, catering to the rush of lumberjacks looking to spend their winter earnings.
Wagons, buggies, horses, and oxen occupied most of the hitching posts along the deeply rutted street. The odors from the animals mixed with those of the sawed pine and smoldering sawdust. “The smell of fortunes being made,” Tor recalled from his time in the Chicago coal yard.
Tor went directly to Callahan’s Mercantile. Three clerks were there to assist the lumberjacks now exploring the store. Tor picked out a white cotton shirt, a matching Arrow collar, cotton britches, leather shoes, socks, underwear, and a smart, dark blue jacket. He removed his damp, ragged hat, studied it with affection, and stuffed it into his back pocket, trying on several from the shelf of boxed hats. He chose a blue derby, similar in every way but the color, to his Uncle Ingman’s.
Tor approached a clerk. “I’d like to put these on.”
The clerk motioned toward the back room.
Minutes later, Tor returned, looking and feeling like a new man.
“I’ll take a dime’s worth of peppermint sticks to boot,” he said as he handed his double eagle to the clerk, “and, could you put those in three bags?”
The clerk grinned. “You tryin’ to sweeten up some young ladies?”
“Well, one bag’s for Mrs. Ringstadt. She owns the boarding house up on the hill. The second bag is for her daughter and she is far sweeter than any old peppermint stick. I hope to use the third to coax her little sisters to make themselves as scarce as feathers on a fish. Say, which way’s the closest barbershop?”
“Around the corner,” said the clerk. “But you’ll have a good long wait with all the lumberjacks in town tonight.”
The clerk gave Tor his change before wrapping his work clothes and boots in brown paper tied with cotton string.
Much later, Tor emerged from the barber shop, well-groomed and smelling of wintergreen tonic. He turned up the boardwalk, clutching a bundle of work clothes in his right hand, candy in his left. Whistling, he walked gingerly up the street, soon reaching the boarding house steps.
The sweet sound of soft piano music drifted through the open window. He listened for a few seconds before knocking on the door. The music stopped. He heard footsteps. The corner of the curtain moved. The door flew open. Tor Loken dropped his packages and wrapped his arms around Rosie, hugging her as though he would never let go.