holes and crannies until a jagged irregular scoop-hollow had formed
immediately underneath the fall. Naturally this implied a ledge
below.

In flood time the water boiled and roared through this obstruction
in a torrent. The saw logs, caught in the rush, plunged end on into
the scoop-hollow, hit with a crash, and were spewed out below more
or less battered, barked, and stripped. Sometimes, however, when
the chance of the drive brought down a hundred logs together, they
failed to shoot over the barrier of the ledge. Then followed a jam,
a bad jam, difficult and dangerous to break. The falls had taken
her usurious share of the lives the river annually demands as her
toll.

This condition of affairs Orde had determined, if possible, to
obviate. From the thirty-five or forty miles of river that lay
above, and from its tributaries would come the bulk of the white and
Norway pine for years to follow. At least two thirds of each drive
Orde figured would come from above the fall.

"If," said he to North, "we could carry an apron on a slant from
just under the crest and over the pot-holes, it would shoot both the
water and the logs off a better angle."

"Sure," agreed North, "but you'll have fun placing your apron with
all that water running through. Why, it would drown us!"

"I've got a notion on that," said Orde. "First thing is to get the
material together."