about noon
With luck , a few of the individual timbers would float ten , even twenty , miles before some chance eddy or fortuitous obstruction would bring them to rest . Such eddies and obstructions , however , drew a constant toll from the ranks of the free-moving logs , so that always the volume of timbers floating with the current diminished , and always the number of logs caught and stranded along the sides of the river increased . To restore these to the faster water was the especial province of the last and most expert crew -- the rear . Orde discovered about noon that the jam crew was having its troubles . Immediately below Reed 's dam ran a long chute strewn with boulders , which was alternately a shallow or a stretch of white-water according as the stream rose or fell . Ordinarily the logs were flushed over this declivity by opening the gate , behind which a head of water had been accumulated . Now , however , the efficiency of the gate had been destroyed .