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The vast expanse of logs had been no life raft for Angel, who'd surely drowned or been crushed to death in the basin above the river bend, although the lu drive at least to where Twisted River poured int

o the Pontook Reservoir at Dead Woin River had created the reservoir; once the logs were let loose in the Androscoggin, they would next encounter the sorting gaps outside Milan In Berlin, the Androscoggin dropped two hundred feet in three miles; two paper aps in Berlin It was not inconceivable to iel Pope, from Toronto, was on his way there

COME NIGHTFALL, THE COOK and his son were still attee leftovers, for tomorrow's meals, from the scores of untouched dinners in the se--the cookhouse in the so-called town of Twisted River, which was barely larger and only a little less transient than a logging cae on a river drive hadn't been a lodge at all There once was a traveling kitchen that had been permanently built onto a truck body, and an adjacent truck on which ahall could be taken down and reassembled--this hen the trucks used to perpetually ers orking next

In those days, except on the weekends, the rivermen rarely went back to the town of Twisted River to eat or sleep The ca had to be co shelters were built onto truck bodies

Now nobody kneould beco town of Twisted River, which was situated partway between the river basin and the Dummer ponds The saw company maintained bunkhouses for the more transient woodsmen, who included not only the French Canadian itinerants but ers The company also e--the aforementioned cookhouse--for the cook and his son But for howcompany knew

The lumber industry was in transition; it would one day be possible for every worker in the logging business to work froinal settleans the and eating and storing equipment had not only been mounted on trucks, on wheels, or on crawler tracks, but they were often attached to rafts or boats

The Indian dishwasher--she worked for the cook--had long ago told the cook's young son that wanigan was fro the boy to wonder if the dishwasher herself was from the Abenaki tribe Perhaps she just happened to know the origin of the word, or she'd merely claimed to know it (The cook's son went to school with an Indian boy who'd told hiin)

While it lasted, the work during a river drive was fro operation to feed the ans couldn't get close to a river site, the two midday meals had been trekked to the drivers The first and lastlodge But out of their affection for Angel, tonight ers had missed their lastthe log drive, until the darkness had driven the awareness that none of them knew if Dead Woman Dam was open Fros--probably with Angel aht already have flowed into the Pontook Reservoir, but not if Dead Woman Dam was closed And if the Pontook Da Canadian would be headed pell-in No one knew better than Ketchuel there

The cook could tell when the river drivers had stopped searching--fro their pike poles against the cookhouse A few of the tired searchers found their way to the dining lodge after dark; the cook didn't have the heart to turn theone home--everyone but the Indian dishwasher, who stayed late alupo--or "Cookie," as the lumberjacks routinely called him--made the men a late supper, which his twelve-year-old son served

"Where's Ketchum?" the boy asked his dad

"He's probably getting his arm fixed," the cook replied

"I'll bet he's hungry," the twelve-year-old said, "but Ketchuh"

"He's ireed, but he was thinking that el Pope ht, because the veteran logger had taken the young Canadian under his wing He'd looked after the boy, or he had tried to

Ketchum had the blackest hair and beard--the charred-black color of charcoal, blacker than a black bear's fur He'd been ed froone their oays Ketchum lived year-round in one of the bunkhouses, or in any of several run-down hostelries, if not in a wanigan of his own devising--namely, in the back of his pickup truck, where he had cohts when he'd passed out, dead drunk Yet Ketchuel away from alcohol, and he'd kept not a few of the older wo Canadian, too