Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/132

 emergency, even possibly have set the arm or shoulder, and could certainly have cared for it until a surgeon at Norridgewock or farther up the river was reached. As yet the logging drives were all above Millbank Falls, so that Trafford's search pointed entirely in that direction.

Every schoolboy or farmer's lad is a walking directory to any logging drive within five miles, and Trafford had no difficulty in learning that the nearest drive was at the Bombazee Rips, above Norridgewock. Here he found the ordinary gang of a dozen men, with boats and the implements of their trade, at work on the logs which were beginning to jam against those that had first grounded on the ledge at the head of the rips. Full half of the gang were French Canadians, small, dark men of wonderful litheness and agility, men with a tenacity of life that seems to bid defiance to the wet and exposure of their trade. It was hard work by day, hard sleep by night, often in clothes soaked with the river water; yet cheerful, healthful good humour was evidenced in the loud chatter that came with every lull in the work. It was here that the grown lads of the