Prologue

“Daylight in the swamp!” yelled the log-driver foreman as he pounded a stick on the bottom of a cooking pot. “Daylight in the swamp!” A hint of pink showed above the pine trees to the east, but it would be another half hour before sunrise. The night temperature had dropped into the low thirties, and white frost covered everything, not unusual for April in Wisconsin. The mighty Tamarack River roared as it tumbled over rocks and raced south. Logs, thousands of them, filled the river, which was just below flood stage. Huge chunks of blue ice also floated on the water, some breaking apart when they crashed into the rocks, sending up plumes of frigid spray.

“Hell, it’s still dark,” mumbled Mortimer Dunn, one of a dozen log drivers sleeping in the big white tent the crew of sturdy men had pitched on the banks of the river the previous night, just before the sun went down. Dunn’s big, brown German shepherd slept beside him. Prince was his constant companion in the woods and on the river. The dog wore a leather collar with a little brass bell attached, so Mortimer could keep track of him while he was hustling logs caught in an eddy or hung up on rocks, something that happened often on river drives. Mortimer also carried a wooden whistle in his pocket, one he had carved. He used it to call Prince when they became separated, as sometimes happened when they moved down the river.

Dunn, only five feet seven and 165 pounds, was part of an elite crew in charge of guiding logs down the Tamarack River when the ice went out in the spring. They moved the logs from the pine forests north and east of Stevens Point to Lake Poygan, then on to Lake Winnebago and the sawmills in Oshkosh.

“Doin’ you men a favor. Worked you kinda late last night, so thought we’d get an early start today so we can knock off a little earlier this evening,” the foreman said in a too loud voice.

Most log drivers also worked as lumberjacks during the long winter. They earned twice the money as log drivers as they did as lumberjacks; riding the logs on the river was a far more dangerous job. As lumberjacks, they sawed down giant pine trees and, with teams of oxen and bobsleds, toted the logs to the river’s edge, where they stacked them in huge piles, waiting for the spring breakup, when they rolled the logs into the Tamarack’s cold, brown, swirling waters.

The men, cursing and scratching themselves, crawled out of their bedrolls, dressed, and prepared for breakfast. With breakfast finished, several greased their legs and waists with lard to protect them a bit from the icy cold water. The cook prepared lunch for them and placed it in nose bags, canvas sacks they took with them so they could eat without leaving the river and the thousands of logs they shepherded south. The men climbed into their bateaus, double-bowed boats, and began their day’s work.

Mortimer Dunn and Prince, riding in their bateau, brought up the rear of the crew, ready for any emergency the log drivers might face as they kept the big pine logs, some of them four feet and more in diameter and twenty feet long, moving in the rapid current of the river. Mortimer’s specialty was undoing logjams, which meant first locating the key log that must be dislodged before the logs in a pile-up could begin moving. Though a small man, he was all muscle, with the agility of a cat, a characteristic that served him well on the river drives.

The men used long pike poles with metal spikes on the ends to nudge the logs along. Occasionally, when several logs were hung up in a rapids or in a sharp turn in the river, the men climbed out of their boats and rode them, often falling into the bone-chilling water. The work was not only uncomfortable, it was also exceedingly dangerous. Every river had its “dead-man bends” where a log driver had lost his footing, drowned, and was buried on a little knoll overlooking the water.

But this day was going well. The logs moved straight and true, with few hang-ups. So far no one had to leave his bateau to dislodge a log stuck on the river bank or caught on a rock.

Mortimer saw the floating cook shack, the “wanigan,” coming down the river a half mile behind them. It was a barge made of logs chained together with a small, unpainted, rustic wooden building riding on it. In addition to being a floating kitchen, it also carried supplies such as axes and extra pike poles.

From the pocket in his thick red-and-white-checkered wool shirt, Mortimer retrieved his ever-present pipe and tobacco. He filled the pipe’s bowl, struck a match to the tamped-down tobacco, and tasted the sweet-smelling stuff.

The sun had come up and quickly melted the white frost on the river bank with a promise of making it a warm day—perhaps the warmest the crew had experienced this spring. Long Vs of Canada geese flew over, winging their way north, and calling loudly. A sure sign of spring. Mortimer heard the log drivers singing, something they did when things were going well and they were enjoying being on the river.

Ho Ho, Ho Hay, keep the logs a-going.

Keep ’em rolling and twisting.

Keep ’em moving, keep ’em straight.

On the way to the lake called Poygan.

Ho Ho, Ho Hay,

What a day, what a day.

Mortimer joined in the song as his big dog looked up at him. He felt good, much better than yesterday, when he and the crew had gotten soaked trying to dislodge a minor logjam. It took them more than two hours to loosen up the logs and get things moving again.

Mortimer thought of his wife, Amelia, and their five children who spent the winter on their farm in Ames County, in the Tamarack River Valley some forty miles south of where he was now. In November, when the farm work was completed, he traveled to the Northwoods and the logging camps where he had worked for the last several winters. His sandy Ames County farm did not produce enough for him to pay his taxes and otherwise make ends meet with his large family. The lumberjack income, and especially the extra money he made as a log driver, made all the difference. Mortimer missed his wife and family and thought of them every day.

A few days ago, he’d written his wife a letter and mailed it at one of the trading posts along the river.

Dear Amelia,

Oh, how I miss you and the children. Tell them I am doing well and have had some exciting experiences here on the great Tamarack River. Just yesterday, I spent most of a morning breaking up an enormous logjam that backed the logs up on the river for nearly a mile. We finally got it loose, and the logs started moving again.

It won’t be long now and I’ll be home with all of you, and we can begin putting in the spring crops. Working in the woods is not a bad job, but I sure miss working on the farm. Nothing beats the smell of freshly turned soil in the spring, not even the smell of fresh pine sawdust.

I have a special surprise for you, something I made during the long winter nights in the Northwoods. I can’t wait to see your reaction to it. A hint of what it is—something I carved.

From somewhere on the Tamarack River.

Love,

Mort

Dunn heard the singing abruptly stop, a sign of trouble ahead. Most of the crew had moved around a bend in the river, so Mortimer could not see what happened. He poled his bateau into the main current so he could catch up with the rest of the log drivers. As he rounded the bend, he saw the problem, another logjam. It didn’t look as serious as the one the previous day.

“Over here, Mort,” one of the drivers yelled. “The problem is over here.” Mortimer poled his bateau close to the jam and climbed out, the calks on his boots digging into the soft pine as he jumped from log to floating log, with pike pole in hand. Prince stayed behind, watching his master’s every move.

Mortimer bent over to see if he could spot the key log. When he did so, the entire jam broke loose of its own accord, with several huge logs falling on him and tossing him into the deep and treacherous Tamarack. The other drivers heard a scream like none they had ever heard before as they saw Mortimer Dunn disappear into the mass of logs that once more hurried down the river.

Prince heard the scream as well and jumped into the churning water, leaping over logs, the little bell on his collar ringing. The dog disappeared into the river, and neither Mortimer nor his dog was ever seen again.

Heartbroken when she got word of her husband’s death several days later, Amelia Dunn erected a tombstone in the family cemetery on the far corner of their farm, within sight of the Tamarack River. The words on the tombstone said:

Mortimer Dunn

Father, Log Driver, Farmer, Woodcarver

May 15, 1865

April 15, 1900